


Wired Heart

by calico134340



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, Blow Jobs, Canon Disabled Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Reunions, Strength Kink, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 36,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17976971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico134340/pseuds/calico134340
Summary: All Shizuo wanted was to fix the past. The only problem was that his whole past was Izaya himself.





	1. Absence

* * *

 

There was a time when Izaya used to look down on people.

 

He’d absorb every spark of humanity alinged on the streets, selectively divide them in rows and rows of paper dolls and watch uninhibited as they blend into the ordinary.

 

Shizuo hated it; the feeling of hatred was pure and completely mutual for each other, a stigma that stained Ikebukuro forever. The weight of a quick fight started with a mocking smirk upon the crowd and a fist through the wall or around the nearest street sign and ended in a never-fading chase and the expectation of another encounter around the corners. It irked Shizuo that he thought about it; introspect too much over the past, at how much the few months changed the life he knew it defined Ikebukuro--it defined _himself_ as much as he hated to admit.

 

He could see the everyday routine of the other; the way Izaya would wake with the strong smell of bitter coffee laid out on the table by his secretary, would lose himself browsing the forums in search of information and entertainment, would dodge any additional threats with the same dexterity he used while jumping away from the trashcans that he’d throw in his way. Above all--everything that made Izaya the _Izaya_ that Shizuo knew and that the population avoided--would be his constant obsession of observing. Shizuo could still sense it, a reminder deeply craved in his memory--a dark silhouette shaped in the window-glass; knee bent over and arm pressed between the rigid support and his forehead as he looked further into the rivers of humanity.

 

The sensation brought a tight anger in his veins, blood stabbing under his irritated skin; he had hallucinations, the same smile cutting through his vision like scissors through paper. Celty told him it was normal; a guilt, powerful and crushing over the realization of what he’d done, over the repetitive tone in his subconscious that reproduced vaguely the words _‘Do it monster‘_ spilled out with venom and disgust. But it wasn’t normal; his mind couldn’t work at the same capacity and that, coming from Heiwajima Shizuo who had a difficulty in remembering names and controlling his anger was rich to say at least.

 

It was the conversation with Kasuka over a family reunion that made him realize the past should be left ignored even if the denial of acceptance was harsher than the reality of a finally quiet Ikebukuro. _‘You’re hurting yourself.’_ his brother said under the shape of an indifferent smile, but Shizuo took it all to heart and walked home more lightheaded than he would’ve been if he were drunk. The pressure of what he had done was crushing him to the strain when he’d throw himself in the covers of his bed and punch the next days in oblivion.

 

On a sleepless night, he had turned on his phone, bored and frustrated as he skimmed through different internet forums. He would’ve laughed at how similar was what he was doing with what Izaya used to do when the one-scroll long article gripped his heart in an unspeakable uneasiness thumping through his veins and bringing the tremor along his fingertips. 

 

The article seemed normal in itself; the disclosure of a business issue--a married couple going through divorce and the _drama_ of who will take over the luxurious café. A video was on display, something Shizuo presumed were the two yelling at each other and the interviewer pressuring them and digging out new ways for the others to continue the screaming and displeasures. Shizuo classified it as uninteresting. What did strike him was the photograph at the bottom of the page. The front of the café--wide enough to be mistaken from an actual restaurant--the window-walls showing every corner visible inside the building, the offerings of sweets and coffee and further in the right, a familiar figure, bent over the table, elbows down and black hair sticking the curve of his lashes.

 

Shizuo dropped the phone, the sound distant to the ringing in his eardrums. He stood still, waited for his uneven breath to regain usual composure before sighing, the ghost of a laugh on the edge of his tongue as it spilled the bitter reminders to flush in spotlight over his vision. 

 

It seemed like Izaya made a habit of constant chasing even from the dead.


	2. Regret

* * *

 

Shizuo couldn’t look at the photograph.

 

He saved it from the site, a firsthand decision that took over him in the first span of minutes as he surfed around the lengths of the photograph; secured it in the folder which he named _fucking flea_ pressing the fingertips slightly too forcefully for his new, crack-clear phone’s screen. He was used to the whole image, knew the individual colors that illuminated every corner, but the details were as clear as a blur. He’d look at it through the finder, tension loosen by the sight of the wallpaper, a picture of him and Kasuka, his brother’s face as emotionless as ever--only the smallest hint of happiness in the half-lit eyes--then his fingers would select the gallery to display the four nearly-empty folders. The contains were limited--old photos, screenshots, selfies that Shinra took every given occasion and lastly the one-photo folder. He overlooked the image in and out, a curve of slim and bony wrist and a stream of heat blown by the puffs from between thin and violent-like lips; then he’d look away, throw the phone on the couch extent or just close the app entirety.

 

It’s been three days. Three days in which Tom was forced to work alone and he’d ignore every message that Celty had sent, from _‘How are you?’_ to _‘Shinra almost burned himself while cooking pot because he was daydreaming about our wedding and I don’t even remember the proposal?’_ to _‘Shizuo, are you alright?’._

 

He felt bad. He did when he poured himself a glass of milk and thought about the milkshake he and Tom would share at the end of a continuous work day, or when the picture of Shinra with both arms around Celty’s neck would appear first on the specific folder.

 

He learned to walk the streets peacefully, though with time his body would pick up the adrenaline like it was a necessary part of his system. His hands would tighten into fists, veins throbbing under the expanse of his skin. He’d feel anger upon the normality he wished for, over a vending machine that stood out--bright red that screamed high precaution and danger similar to his blond bleached hair.

 

_What a nuisance. Even with you gone the city rots with your smell._

 

He often remembered Izaya, his signature deep emerged on the streets; a fur trimmed coat and a razor-sharp smile. He thought about what he would do if the existence of the other was painted in the streets again, absorbing the flow of humanity and attracting him from afar with the force of a magnet.

 

The words _what if_ might be the saddest in any language around the globe. It squeezes out the possibilities like water imprinting the curves of a towel, any bad decision shamelessly laid out for the word to see, twisting his rationality into delusion. Shizuo often thought about it; what if they never met. What if the probably-unbalanced but annoyingly-friendly acquaintance Shinra was never as delighted and excited to bring them together. What if their first encounter wasn’t on the wide school grounds discoloured by dirt and blood; members of a gang spread everywhere unconscious or beaten to surrender and what if the first exchange of movements between each other were not the swing of a knife and a dodged blow; if his words were not _‘I don’t like you’_ based on first appearance and self-loathed frustration. They could’ve been different, maybe lovers or just strangers oblivious of each other’s lives.

 

He can’t decide what exactly made his heart protest in hateful acknowledgement at the sight of Izaya; the first instinct was to reach, to take, to have the half-proposition Izaya offered within curved lips, held tight like a secret barely restrained. The force which gripped him--desperation high and a blur of madness--blew off the image of the frail figure, body too light and skin overly pale; the contour of bones creased under his clothes and Shizuo wanted to feel the pressure with such anguish that it drove him crazy as he threw a clenched fist in preparation for breaking the skin on a bleeding cheekbone.

 

Their actions defined the abnormalities in the city, the danger of broken bones and deep-cut wounds in the structure of flesh, but the reason was always unknown, hidden under the offhand reciprocity of hate.

 

His greatest nightmare was to acknowledge his wrong-doings; a glimpse of bloodless face and empty eyes and yet a stronger flow of reminiscence held high the desire of reconvene and reparations.

 


	3. Sane

* * *

 

If there was a person damned enough to be called Izaya’s friend, it'll be Shinra.

 

From all the people around Ikebukuro, Shinra passed through as the most selfish. Among people with kind hearts or slightly twisted love, Shinra was the most infected, entirely absorbed by the existence of one individual. The feeling of attachment crossed the edge of obsession, resulting to everything in his power to keep her close. He would do anything, even if that’ll corollary in getting his lover hurt.

 

Naturally, Izaya choose him as his only friend.

 

And as naturally, the overzealous person brought them together to a collision similar to the clash of metal above metal.

 

“So you really think he’s alive? You’re sure you’re not hallucinating? I should check on you, I should _definitely_ check on you." Shinra’s voice beamed in the room in a common spark of innocence translated to widely big eyes and an easy smile that would be formed on the curve of his mouth even if Shinra would ever feel the need of expressing annoyance. It was a define contrast between the two, a line drawn to show differences even from the first days of high school when Shinra come up to him from the narrowed and darkened corner in the far background with thrill and amazement in his eyes after Shinzuo’s burst of anger upon the kid who stole his lunch.

 

“No, I’m not. Look, there at the window. It’s _him._ ” Shizuo pinpointed the location, finger trembling above the screen before retreating and cupping his hands, fingers intertwined.

 

Shinra hummed, his hair falling over the cover of his glasses, mouth agape in observation before brightening, his gaze returning to Shizuo with a joyful glimmer. “So are you finally gonna talk about him?”

 

Shizuo pushed the frustration aside with a growl. “I don’t wanna talk about him.” he said, throwing his head over the higher extent of the couch _“Never.”_ he added, forcefully and dark around the edges.

 

“Huh.” Shinra hummed again, then: “You should, considering he was the only one keeping you sane.”, the cup of tea closer to his mouth as he breathed in, mumbling something along the lines of _‘Sweet but definitely not sweeter than Celty’_ before clinging it to the table, barely undisturbed by the fist slammed on the wooden surface as Shizuo’s body shifted into a deceptive frustration and his footfalls pressed harder the ground underfoot, muscles tense in any given necessity of ascension.

 

“What the hell are you talking about?! _Sane?_ I wasn’t crazy, he was the one delirious!”

 

Shinra cupped his hand around his cheek, one foot over the other as he glared directly into the other's features, admiring the constant shift of emotion, and there it was; the shape of similarities between Shinra and Izaya--slightly unsettling in the way they stared throughout human behaviour. Though one grasped in that one stare the flow of questions about the power of strength that Shizuo hold, never stepping out of line to experience on his own skin while the other seek it, pushing the boundaries as far as to feel it firsthand.

 

“He was the one that reminded you unconditionally about what your strength could cause above yourself and the others. The fight was an added bonus, can’t say he didn’t enjoy that.”

 

Shizuo relaxed the pressure flowing in his system, smelling in the aroma of sweetness emerged from the cup of refined strawberry tea, before pushing his cup to reach over the table and pour more milk into it to dissolve the colors in a shady brown. "The flea really had a sadistic way of living.”

 

 _“Had?”_ Shinra asked, amplifying over the tone of confusion with enjoyment. “So you really believe he’s dead?”

 

Shizuo would’ve lied, a simple answer as short as _yes_ or _no_ on the tip of his tongue but the lie would be evident; while Izaya loved to dissect the human minds until the scalpel would turn full force on himself, Shinra had the capability of catching the liar red-handed. 

 

They sure were a pair of disturbing humans.

 

“I won’t believe it otherwise, until I see it for myself.” Shizuo answered honestly, sending the spoon in circle around the sweet liquid. “So what do you say I do?”

 

He waited for him to die out his humming, calming the burning annoyance with the promise that Shinra would know better how to handle Izaya, watching from peripheral vision as the other pushed and pulled the phone on the table. It was a meaningless movement accompanied by some uneven and annoying tune that extended Shizuo’s patience close to deteriorating and shattering into sharp pieces.

 

“Well I don’t know!” he exclaimed, bright and cheerful as ever with the arms gesturing around expansively in a typical way adopted in any sort of conversation. “It’s not me whose looking for him, is it?

 

“Aren’t you even a tiny bit worried? “

 

“Why would I? He’s not Celty! “

 

_Of course..._

 

“Look, Shizuo.” Shinra’s voice drove over the edges of seriousness and Shizuo straighten, the cup of tea fused with the saccharine milk half-empty and cold; “If you go looking for him, I can’t guarantee it’s gonna end well. He’ll probably want to return, and that’ll certainly create chaos. If you don’t, we can easily erase it from the present. Delete the picture and forget. You go back to whatever work you do and I’ll have more time with Celty that’s surprisingly really worried about yourself.”

 

Shizuo nodded in acknowledgement as he pursed his lips in the tight giveaway of obeisance, vision shifting to the now blocked phone which held the document regarding Izaya’s existence safe as a locker thunderstruck by his own arch of a fist creased around the knuckles.

 

“But you can’t forget about it.” Shinra adds once he finishes his tea; his glasses transfused by blades of blinding light.

 

“After all, you were both bound to a twisted relationship from the start.”


	4. Punchline

* * *

 

Nakameguro was quiet.

 

There was a complete peacefulness that blended along the unfamiliar streets, a calm environment provided by the promise of complete extinction of people’s collision on the streets and cars honking. The city was filled with restaurants and cafés, small and old-fashioned combined with the luxuriously modern ones; the occasional children laughing and birds singing that reminded Shizuo of a countryside were the calmness and absence of people kept the flow of anger under the high protection of hard skin. Nakameguro was all Shizuo had ever wanted, the unvoiced dreams of an ordinary Ikebukuro. And yet the silence rubbed painfully at his eardrums, a constant frustration born from nothing but pure stillness and the offhand thought of Izaya slipping through these streets with the same easy precaution he performed in the northern district. Everything was similar to what Shizuo dreamed of and yet that’s why it was totally not Izaya-like. The normality was too strong, no signs of threats or a swing of the arm at forehead-length, knife encircled by slim fingers in a mocking salute. Shizuo found it laughable, the mere thought of Izaya bearing to live by such low and ordinary standards, though with every passing minute he caught the smell of a way-too-familiar kind of familiarity that made his fists bouncing in the depths of his pockets; the flea scent transported and dissolved in every atom that constructed the existence around him and Shizuo would’ve laughed if he weren’t in the punchline himself.

 

He found the café displayed by the article, a much more smaller and simpler construction than what was professionally provided--the photographer captured the extent of wide glass-walls that offered an illusion of space. He avoided looking at the far right corner, the shape of a tired figure imprinted in his subconscious.

 

Shizuo looked over the crowds, searching the familiar rot-chilling smile; turning way too sharply at every glimpse of raven black hair and fluffy coat. He felt his legs move on instinct, control loosen and footfalls landing with as much pressure as it could crack the pavement’s surface until he groaned,  recognizing the names of the various bistros and deciding with a firm nod that Meguro River was the perfect place to ease his thoughts and he choose the liberty of lingering around the specific district’s ideorgram.

 

The river was beautiful, sending chills of pleasure along his neck and the aroma of the last fallen cherry blossoms in the late autumn. The noise--as minimal as it was--blended with the brush of waves on the rims. He hardly heard it at first; the sound of scratching along the ground, circular movement that brought perception in the acknowledgment of wheels. Shizuo turned, a bit too sharply, fists already clenched in adrenaline or caution before catching the glimpse of the figure, as familiar as it was alien to him. The back was slightly bent, hair falling above narrow eyes and tickling the edge of high cheekbones; the hands hidden under the protection of fur-sleeved coat, skeletal fingers tapping absently over the metal handles. His breath was knocked out, a tight knot formed in his lungs pressing harder than normal; a complete blankness took over him as the first realization of _‘I found him’_ was voiced in his rationality. 

 

He could breathe again, slowly and uneven before the sudden rung of his phone startled him and he parted his lips on a bellow of confusion. He fished his phone out of his pocket, scowling slightly as he read the characters displayed on screen and swiped right.

 

“So how is it?” Shinra’s voice echoed, greetings aside and tone on the verge of laughing as if he tried to held his tongue in addition of a secret kept correctly. “Any revelations so far?”

 

Shizuo sighed, his fingers over his head tangling with the hair and massaging slightly the base of his scalp. His voice was trembling, hands twitching around the plastic; “He.." he said, breaking off the constant questions of _A_ _re you there?_  and _H_ _ellooo?_  “.. a wheelchair..” he sighed--a small and deformed information. 

 

He heard Shinra hum in disinterest. “So you’ve noticed? I’m sure it’s nothing of concern.” Shizuo's head was spun around to gaze at Izaya; his back straighten on the exposed extent that his wheelchair provided, arms resting on the handles and hair sticking in his eyes over the span of lashes.

 

“You knew?” Shizuo returned, voice high with anger as the meaning behind the words settled in like keys in their locker yet managed to whisper it as the force of the wheezing sound won’t reach Izaya. Shizuo anticipated the other to tilt his head sideways, a glimmer of life in the eyes on the beginning of a laugh; he feared the probability of head turning, widened big eyes shadowed with unvoiced horror and a frail figure trembling under his stare.

 

“His chair was different than what the staff offered, and clearly metallic.” Shinra said undisturbed, the sound of soup pouring over his words. “The picture was not only Izaya’s profile, you know?“ he bit back the mockery as his humming stopped, the sound of soup pouring abruptly stilled before a gasp was heard on the other end; Shizuo imagined the view--Shinra's eyes wide with pleasure and ledge high in the air as he tasted the food before screaming, voice full blown in the receiver as he said _'It tastes great, Celty!'_ and breaking the connection, the sound of static ringing still in his ears.

 

Shizuo brushes it off, staring boringly at the black screen before sliding his gaze back. His heart dropped in the pit of his stomach, nausea begun to creep under his composure when he stared back at the two umbriferous crimson eyeballs.

 

Izaya looked like a blood-curdling ghost in the sadistic glow of sunset.


	5. Convulsion

* * *

 

Izaya looked terrifying.

 

It’s not that Shizuo would describe him as such on a daily basis, in fact the raven individual sparked immediate beauty at first sight, the glance in the eyes and the soft features defined by sharp edges--a contrast as strange as it was fascinating. The usual curves of his body that balanced with every move was a fixated image in Shizuo’s brain as he looked over the high-school’s days memories when his hair burned with newly bleached color and Izaya threw the frustration in a swing of the knife or the always on-the-verge peace that exploded with the conclusion of a chase never ended. Shizuo admitted if not secondhand the pleasant appearance at first glance which Izaya offered to the eye, hidden meaning of mocking annoyance deep in the structure of his twisted personality--he remembered the hunting crimson that stole the light and held it stilled like a magnet conceiving under the weight of his lashes. Now a deeper line cut along the lips and pulled Izaya’s mouth in a grimace, as tight as a sewn wound under the exposure of nearly empty eyes. It was creepily, Shizuo’s body picked up the uneasiness when their eyes locked for a fraction of struck time; his feet pressed in the pavement as glued.

 

The force behind the sudden shock laid claim over his tensed muscles, sizing it to the painful self-inflected confusion while Izaya shifted the angle of his wheelchair, fingers brushing over the buttons hidden by the fall of furred coating and the shadows blended over by the rising nighttime. There was a persistent monotony in the way the wheels broke constantly the silence; a forgotten layout in addition to Izaya’s existence. The proximity died out between them, knocking the air away as _'_ _Shizuo-chan'_ was offered in acknowledgment with uncharacteristically dismiss of calmness. “It’s been a while.”

 

It takes quite the effort for Shizuo to actually see what’s in front of him; the signature of curved hips and long legs hidden from vision in the bent position which the other withdraw with the arch of unused muscles--harder was for him the see pass the appearance, the weight of a dark and starless night that painted Ikebukuro’s slight and almost destruction. With the given acknowledgment of the other’s state and wellbeing, the denial was hard, harsher implanted on the edge of rationality as Shizuo’s eyes tried to dodge away Izaya’s stare burning the giveaway of his mocha eyes. If acceptance seemed hard before, now it passed the rush of normality; clearly a defined impossibility as Shizuo realized the result of his multiple wrong doings and persuasive anger, and yet Izaya kept looking and he kept staring until the blow of surrender shaped a harder outline of impatience as he said _'Izaya – kun‘_ tasting the bitterness of every syllable on his tongue.

 

That at least brought a change in the other’s expression, small and structured in curiosity as Izaya’s eyes gleamed for a fraction of a second and as his head followed the path slightly bent towards the left. A smile--the usual stigma--sharp and dangerous was what Izaya suggested, an excitement that didn’t reach his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a tone of monotony that failed to take upon the provided self-restrain and tranquility. “Finally coming to end what you’ve started?”

 

The question marks itself in Shizuo’s understanding faster than lighting. It’s simple to associate the weight they carry, the familiar welcoming of a fight accepted more with closed fists and keen knifes rather than opened arms and the plug of nostalgia and Shizuo shudders from head to toe, feels the different levels of anger die out, vanishing away in the flue of his system, before knocking him out full-force and he’s left breathless for a span of several moments, too long and stretched along by the constant watchful eye the other delivered. “What the hell are you doing here, Izaya?” he said in the end, voice grave with the low humming of tight annoyance for his fast-racing heartbeat.

 

“Can’t I enjoy a well-deserved extended vacation?” Izaya asked with the curve of his lips higher and angling in a shift motion so both sides were finally equal. His tone held the mockery as if it were a burned mark he wished to heal but kept darkening on the exposure of skin.

 

“Definitely not _you._ ” Shizuo returned with a growl, the venom and pressure which he allowed shamelessly to slip growing in the short break between sentences and as he stared at the other, his voice was breaking with added fury which he hardly could feel under the disconnection that Izaya’s smell offered to him in a masochistic present. _“Just what trick are you--”_ was all he could say from the strain of his windpipe before Izaya managed a sharp intake of air that sounded closer to a sob than anything else. Shizuo watched startled as the other trembled, arms risen in the offhand protection above his head, hands closed in tight fists that braced around desperation and Shizuo saw blood dripping from under the nails. The change was sudden and uncalled for--a twitch of the head missed, an emptiness in the eyes ignored--and Shizuo felt sick, the image of what he had caused laid before him as writings on a sheet of paper, curved and bold around the edges of every hiragana character. He asked himself before what it would be like, to know the destruction one blow of his own could make to someone’s skin and fracture of bones. He sure acknowledged it when he set the passer-by in a coma, the weight of a vending machine originally directed at the on-the-day bullies that dodged the object with uncontrolled and delusional fear, the hard surface of the projectile colliding with the man’s neck; and he remembered the still nightmarish moment in which he nearly threw a refrigerator at his brother over unimportant vexations. Seeing it firsthand was not something he wished for though, and the victim being Izaya was something he always voiced but never believed. It made him dumbstruck, out of breath and disoriented as he watched the arch of the other’s shoulders curve and push under the weightless coat; he felt the desire to touch and brush his fingers along the angle of his arm--maybe even the elbow, the tip of a knuckle--just to reassure protection. His heart thumped over the probability of rejection, of eyes narrowed to blackness and a razor cutting the edge on his uniform and he never thought he’d live another moment when his impatience gave away to concern in a matter of seconds-- _for Izaya_.

 

By the time Izaya’s arms levelled themselves on the support of the metallic handles, black hair soft over the high cheekbones, Shizuo watched wide-eyed as the other shifted his glare in his original focus, a greater hint of welcoming emerging from within as if calling his name over and over. A strange utopia shattered by a call for help.

 

_“Just what happened to you..? ”_


	6. Vacuous

* * *

 

They arranged another meeting for the length of the other day.

 

It’s a decision taken under the weight of half-formed guilt that spread in the fibers of his muscles and, surprisingly, Izaya’s politeness that lead to a normal and civilized conversation. The proposition was shaped in the shadows of unvoiced questions that burned the inside of his head as if the light was attracted to a blank spot in the center of his neck and widened the burning pain along his body, of every too-harden curve that offered the edge of violence; questions which he hardly could form or allowed to be thought of had he given the mere struggling of expressing them in a blur of irrational rambling. They did talk though. The conversation laid out as unimportant thoughts or observations such as the beauty of the district, the smell of refined clear air that Shizuo could now blend into without the strings of irritable feeling that the familiar shape of trimmed coat carried in its wake; he talked about the ever-so-busy streets in Ikebururo, missing out the tsunami of disconnections and differences the two cities held against each other, about Celty and Shinra’s blossoming yet confusing relationship or about Kasuka’s new movie, filmed into the depths of historical Japan. Shizuo avoided the subject of himself, skipping over every given occasion for the other to ask about his own life as he filled in a weak remark of _Kadota still thinks Shinra jokes about the seriousness of his love life_ or _T_ _his is getting quite chilly_ until the words shaped around his mouth as a substitute of truth and Izaya promised a text and an address for tomorrow’s reunion. 

 

They exchanged phone numbers, something that Shizuo would’ve viewed in the past as a sight of apocalypse approaching, and after the offhand intention that slipped from between Shizuo’s lips at the words of _I don’t have a place to stay_ , Izaya took upon himself the need of vindication and out of bounds benevolence to pay for an apartment in one of the central hotels. They walked together, heads turn cast down from each other in the line of almost ignorance of what Izaya’s--or Shizuo’s--presence draw upon themselves, even if every pickle in Shizuo’s skin screamed the protest and loathing of reaching an arm and grasping, holding the flush of furred sleeve or smooth wrist in the acknowledgment of reality.

 

And yet the roads seemed to get shorter with every forward step and every sharp drag of wheels on pavement that ringed in Shizuo’s ears and by the time they reached the front of the building, Izaya skimmed through the distant crosswalk to take a turn and waved a short farewell with a hint of a smirk on the edges as Shizuo watched the blackness of the wheelchair disappear behind the corner.

 

His apartment provided an open space, wider and bigger than his own home; with the kitchen marked with the existence of food and the smell of sweet milk in the lee of the refrigerator. The bathroom was twice the size of his, luxurious in a way Shizuo never dreamed of achieving with the flow of basic monthly payment and an open living room that allowed passing from a room to the other. Shizuo felt the wish of wandering around with additional awe as much as interest; the sound in his ears ringing and leveling harder than before as he granted the silence around himself, his fingers twitched with the want of turning the phone on and texting a simple message in a quiet plea of attention; he thought about the probability of the other wanting that, the very first intention of slipping the numbers in Shizuo’s phone being the promise of an unusual or embarrassing reaction from the other, so Shizuo focused all his rationality in choosing from a text to a straight call.

 

Instead, he rushed to the bathroom as the rising of a headache roared from inside out, his knees bounced dangerously until they crushed under the hard tiles. He forced down the lingering of his meals secured in the pit of his stomach, arching one arm on the extend the seat provided, raising it high along the silicon to reach and flush the toilet

 

He felt slightly dizzy as he stretched and let his muscles loose in the imagine of calmness implanted around the plug of concern that gripped tight at his heart. The shower was longer than he intended; a quick refreshing before he succumbed to the warmth of newly changed sheets. He brushed invisible grime from his skin, fingers that collided with the exposed flesh with bare attention leaving the nails scratching on the surface and turn the skin color to a sickening red furiously blushing on the outlines of his body. By the time he slid away from the protection of stream hitting the rough and flinching skin, clothes folded and towel over the still wet hair, Shizuo noticed the distant headache as a forgetful memory.

 

Shizuo was certain that his rationality was split in two completely different sides; one that born the need of constant bruised knuckles and frown above the forehead, the bones in his arms screamed recognition of high precaution and strength that the world around knew to avoid. It was the side that whispered in his ears repetitively the idea of bleached hair in bright blond of caution tape, that burned his skin with fear and adrenaline alike for what was to come once a fight was on the brim of breaking unfold. And yet the other side was one that gripped tight in his heart, that emerged heat along with the colder realization of _what if_ ; the same force that grasped his breath all the time he had spent with Izaya by the river, on the nearly empty streets--the same which he felt as his eyes met the furious flow of life that lose itself in Izaya’s eyes for the first time in the numb aftermath of an uncontrolled fit of anger. Shizuo called it hate at first sight, and yet the realization of the power it carried left him dumbstruck and sick; he wanted to reach the depths of the other’s mind and to feel what Izaya felt, if there was the same string of pain around his own heart or if he still held tight around the handle of a sharp razor and he shook his head, water dripping nervously on the carpet and spun around in time to catch the flicker of bright green in the living room. 

 

His feet moved without knowledge, the intuition of advancing further darkening all the other thoughts away as Shizuo gripped the plastic in his hands, held it tight and brushed his fingers along the screen; lines of liquid falling on the surface and his fingers pushed harder until the outline of his fingertips could be counted and identified individually as he finally skimmed over the button and swiped right. The notifications shown three missed calls--two from Shinra followed by long voice messages which Shizuo didn’t even bothered checking before deleting--and one received roughly 30 minutes before from Izaya, the name spread on his screen as the characters blended under the remains of water. Shizuo’s fingers hovered above the _call back_ option before noticing the fast-sent message.

 

 _'Can you talk?'_ It read, a short and quick question with no bounds or explanations. 

 

Shizuo found himself unable to sustain his smile, his fingers pressing with careful attention on the words of ' _Yeah, what’s the matter?'_

 

Izaya’s response came quicker than he expected, thinking that maybe the other fallen asleep in the gap of half an hour, but the message flickered on his screen as if the other held the phone close in hope of reply. _So you were waiting, huh?_

 

 _'That's quite an old-fashioned way of replying to a simple question that could've been answered with yes or no'_ the reply, longer and burned with the aroma of mockery so usually typical for the other. _'_ _Did I wake you?'_ Was the next one sent faster before Shizuo could even think of a reply.

 

 _'No, just took a shower.'_ And then fast before the other could return some sort of derision _'Are you alright? '_

 

The phone stood still with no other incoming message. Shizuo sighed holding onto the edge of the couch as he slid down on it, legs wide spread under the coffee table and a lingering feeling of dread that crumbled along his articulations. He sent _'_ _Izaya'_ and the response of _'Yes'_ was sudden as if the acknowledgement of Shizuo’s existence made him tremble over the keyboard. Shizuo frowned, typing in the flow of short questions of _Izaya_  and  _Are you there_ and _Please say something_ that passed through unread, not even ignored with the mark of a colored bubble. His concern grew higher with every passing second as Shizuo changed unthinkingly to the call and pressed over the display of numbers. 

 

The length of the call seemed infinite to Shizuo, every rung graver and thumping around his ear and just as his wrist flickered with the regret of a missed call the line changed, ringing stopped and Shizuo heard the rasp of "Yeah" as salvation so much as it sounded like a death wish.

 

“Izaya” he said, greetings aside before the prompt question “Are you alright?” said as breathlessly as if he’d ran the marathon.

 

“Just had an interesting dream.” Izaya said. Shizuo knew without much thought what that implied, the meaning of a full-throat scream and sweat dumping the clothes to cling to skin and hair stuck messily on the forehead. So Shizuo straighten, feeling the pressure in his spine ease with the balance he granted with his elbow over the flush of a soft pillow and said “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I used to have them all the time” without as much as thinking twice of the reprehensions of his words. 

 

He waited for a reply but the blow was down-forced, hard and pinning as the silence on the other end seemed to allure the illusion of Izaya’s death, of Izaya’s vanishing existence as not even the faintest breath echoed from the line. If Izaya thought it to be benevolence, the aspiration of silence and loneliness which he represented in front of Shizuo, then he was ready to arch a fist in the hem of trimmed coat just as a reminder of the over-spilling life that once drove around Izaya’s system. “Shizuo” was said in a colder voice that would’ve broke the ice; would’ve caused damage to his own firm composure. “Do you kill me in your dreams?”

 

Shizuo knew what he wanted to say. The _No_ was fixated in his head and ready to be said with as much force as every sound would be formed with capital letters; and yet Shizuo’s mind controlled in a vague blur that forced him to relish the wheezing of _“Do you?”_ with the inflection of every vowel tasting like poison on his tongue.


	7. Brittle

* * *

 

“What are you doing here?“

 

Shizuo knew that seeing Izaya again will be a bliss as much as it was a curse. He moved the probability in his head, leveling his own rush of rationality that kept him as sane as his own physic allowed with the way his bones enclosed the never fading anger in a globe of huge stress-holder that exploded with as much the proximity between the two shorten in time and space which eventually left the two breathless in hope of comprehension or release. And yet once his eyes set unblinkingly over the mass of black hair and the shape of a wheelchair making its way on the pavement, Shizuo felt as if his heart would burst out with something else than adrenaline and ache of a fight; something closer that pushed his muscles in want, in reaching over the edge of the crossword to grip the helms in his hold and push Izaya himself, to feel the metal switch in his touch to the texture of clothes as he brushed his hand on the curve of exposed neck, feeling the way the flesh would crease under his cold hands and the pulse would thump unevenly for the give of life that Shizuo asks for.

 

He waits though, and still watches without the giveaway of his head angling to the side in a hidden way of adverting his eyes. He knows already that Izaya anticipated this kind of approach; would it be stranger if Shizuo would’ve acted normally with the other even on terms when the wheelchair was out of the equation.

 

Izaya brings him to a café that serves respectable food for both their tastes; the aroma spilling as they pushed open the doors combined the sweetness with the bitter taste around the closed air in a toxic attraction. Shizuo watched as Izaya made his way around the display of chairs and tables; moving with exercised dexterity as to push his way through the narrow ends with no additional help from the other. Izaya choose the table in the far corner, blinded by the people’s eye and covered by the lay of a fallen water-blue curtain which Shizuo was tempted to pull over his head to hide the way his eyes exposed the concern as he watched the way Izaya could block his path with one wrong move.

 

Izaya never made wrong moves though. Or rather, he never made them when it didn’t concern Shizuo. He couldn’t blame himself for everything that unfolded that night and everything that those blows and thrown knifes meant now, but Shizuo was certain the principle cause was Izaya’s persuasive will of breaking him. Shizuo couldn’t comprehend as to how much did Izaya manage to break himself instead of the original target.

 

“I think I answered that yesterday, Shizuo. I’m on vacation." Izaya answered as he occupied his vision with the names of foods written inside the menu. His mouth was relaxed with no sign of frown or smile alike and his hair brushed over his eyes in a way Shizuo couldn’t as much as get a glimpse of the lashes curved along the edges. “What are _you_ doing here?“

 

Shizuo gripped the page in his hand, feeling the hard material crumple under his grip. He couldn’t answer Izaya with the exact reason; he himself wasn’t sure what exactly drove him to push his boundaries as far as they are pushed now, to feel the tip of the razor dig in the skin of his neck further as he advanced forward, closer to the source of despair. He told himself once that he’s always been doing this, always allowed Izaya the open proposition to get besides Shizuo and stab a wound deeper in his rationality that told him to stand his ground and ignore any given possibility of fight; yet Shizuo was never one to hold his anger in check. The way Izaya’s head lifted with the faintest inches, his crimson caught in between raven flocks of hair gave Shizuo a stronger weight in his closed fist, forcing it down hard until it bent the menu in half. He watched rather than heard the way Izaya’s mouth shifted as a ghost of a laugh let loose in the empty space among themselves.

 

It drove Shizuo mad; the way Izaya could act so nonchalant over his arrival, act as if they were two high-school friends catching up after years and years of staying apart, meeting in small cafés and shooting the bad thoughts away with the exchange of a call in midnight hours. Two high-school students that played with fire and asked desperately for death on both sides.

 

“Do you have connections to yakuza here too, is that it?“ Shizuo asked instead as he caught the glimpse of a waitress throwing confused stares at the bent menu in his hands. Shizuo gulped, changing the weight of the menu with the grip of his knees under the table as he heard Izaya’s laugh coming closer to a gasp and saw the way his eyes returned furiously to the task at hand.

 

“I’m sure the yakuza wants me dead as much as you do.“ he said, his tone never wavering in contrast with the way his hands hovered above the inked characters and his head barely flinched sideways as if looking for the closest escape.

 

It hit him right in the heart, deep and agonisingly, the way Izaya could think of that. ‘Do you kill me in you dreams?‘ he had asked yesterday, the words still slightly ringing, ever so softly, in Shizuo’s ears to remind him of the reality of those words and the fear behind its meanings. Was Izaya really thinking that? Did he expected Shizuo to come behind him with a street sign tight in his hold and bent, crumbled around the outlines of the metal as he swung it above his head and flew the weight of it over Izaya’s frail skin, over his easily broken bones while he watched thunderstruck from his wheelchair. Or maybe if he’d come in Izaya’s house, tiptoeing his way around the bedroom to get in front and reach over, to hold tight onto his throat and watch with the eyes of a madman as all the air leaves the other; as the colors on his already too-pale face would wash away to nothingness. Shizuo shivered with only the thought of it. His nightmares were only described as unsettling images of the other spread on the sidewalk, his legs crushed and limbs painfully blue with the exposure of bruising marks and successfully blown fists; or the way the crimson color would look as wide and empty as a dead fish’s eye would be, lips parted and pale, an unmoving figure which Shizuo could now stare over under his watchful eye; could make sure it's moving still and not hesitate on the verge of nonexistence.

 

“I don’t want you dead.“

 

Izaya jerked his head, looking at the other with pure interest and shock; his menu forgotten in the span of minutes in which they stared and _stared_ , feeling the pressure of their eyes like a reminder in the back of their throats as they both tried to find the better outtake of what was said. Shizuo knew it might’ve sounded stupid, he had always voiced the desire of killing Izaya, but it was never the words that defined what his actions wanted to represent; he had always wanted to act upon Izaya’s presence in Ikebukuro, always wanted to exile him in another part of Japan, and yet all of his actions lead to the point they were now; with the reunion shaped roughly around the edges of normality and the sound of wheels every time they were skimming through the streets. “I’ve always chased you, and that’s in the past.“ Shizuo said seriously watching the way Izaya’s expression gave away into a more terrified approach, his bottom lip slightly trembling and eyes shaking under the lashes. “I came here to fix the past.“

 

Izaya laughed. It was strange how fast he changed his composure, from utterly horrified to immensely amused. His laugh seemed as it carried the weight of the silence in the café alone, as if the clinging of knifes and chopsticks and the distant wheezes from the other individuals were drawn to a minimum by the way Izaya raised his voice and exhaled in a full-throat laugh. It ended hard; or maybe faster than Shizuo had realized. He lost himself in the chilling yet pleasurable feeling of hearing the chimes coming from the other’s chords which he’d always associated to the rasping of a dying cat or the fast rung of a police siren. “That’s funny.” Izaya said in the end, closing the menu entirely with a small hint of smile still hovering on his lips. He angled his arms--elbow on the surface of hard metal as he placed his cheek gracefully on the exposed closed fist. He fluttered his lashes, twice, the movement catching Shizuo by surprise as it allowed the other to stare firsthandly in the glow of bleeding iris leaving him breathless on the spot; hands shaking the hold of his knees hard enough to cause self-inflicted bruises.

 

“I want to come in good terms with everything before I die.”


	8. Inquietude

 

* * *

Shizuo is scared. 

 

It’s not the flow of responsibilities which came along the knowledge of Izaya’s miraculously survival, or the implications that lead to it; surely he’s more than shaken to the core by what he alone had done, but he learned to look pass his strength and accept the blameworthy meaning carried behind. It’s Izaya that does it. Shizuo is scared because he doesn’t know how he can fix what’s already done with harsh headlines above the past; he’s scared of the future unfold and the way Izaya’s words echoed in his ears like a broken radio static, over and over again in repetitive manner until Shizuo would smash his head in the pillows or slap himself across the forehead to at least try and ease the sound. He can’t sleep, wondering if Izaya  _can,_ if he got pass the nightmare that’ll form itself in his subconscious or if he’s laying in the center of his bed with the sheets close to his chest in a desperate attempt to grasp any source of reality to a lifeline grip. 

 

He thinks about calling, and yet he doesn’t as much as flick his arm length to reach over the nightstand. It’s hard to catch a glimpse of the shadowed phone in the darkness anyways, so Shizuo leans his legs wider in the heat of his sheets and washes the sweat with the back of his hand. He almost laughs at how hot he feels in the first weeks of winter, sighing so hard as to fill the emptiness of his room; sickening though, the way this silence can make him uneasy with the premonition of something bad happening. It was never quiet when he’d exploded in a fit of anger, the taut of a derided voice or the wheezing of a knife would always resound before the disturbing clash of metal pushed brutally from its bounds or the offering of  _‘Izaya-_ _kun_ _’_ spilled with venom and hatred. And it was never quiet after, when the damaged streets would protest with still aching metal left untouched in a hole in the pavement or the agony and fear that people screamed to be acknowledged. The sound of silence was new to Shizuo, and as new as it was it carried unthinkable horror; the silence after the battlefield is washed over, bare of corpses or weapons, the silence ringing minutes before the crash of a plane or the eruption of an earthquake; the silence Izaya must’ve heard as his breath grew rasped and slow and feeling his life spill away from his system, the silence before Izaya prepared himself for his imminent death. Shizuo feared now the thought of Izaya  _dying,_ not because that would mean his plan of fixing things would crumple under his feet like shattered and dead leaves, but because he wanted to be closer to the other more than he ever was, harder, deeply grasping the life the other carried and held it strongly had he given the thought of Izaya’s life spilling away from his hands like sand. 

 

It could be selfish and irrational, but Shizuo wasn’t normal in any case. 

 

He tries to ignore the persistent ache in his chest, the way his heartbeat trembles with every given moment when he allows to think about him, to crave his name on the crest of his mind or the back of his tongue even if the letters of his name tasted too strong and burned along his neck like the gulps of alcohol. As much as he realizes though, reviewing everything from the crisp of the vision in retrospect; Izaya didn’t pushed him off, didn’t distanced himself from Shizuo’s presence. And Shizuo believed that if this goes his way, the same as now, in the length of two sleepless days, then he can achieve some sort of success that seems at first impossible to grasp around. And yet when he turns away, when he shifts his weight on the exposure of blank sheets or when he smokes with excellent precision offered to the rising stream devolving before catching afloat on ceiling, Shizuo can’t stop thinking about the wide teeth showing smile braced around the lips in what could be insinuated as evidence of instability. 

 

He wants to overlook the primary instinct that droves the adrenaline bursting in his veins, calms himself with the thought of what could that mean to Izaya--what greater damage could his anger cause upon the already damaged individual--so he occupies his mind with the lingering smell of Ikebukuro and the sushi cooked with precision in the corner-shop in front of which Simon threw around the fliers with the force of a lunatic and yet the smile of a welcoming friend and when he turns to the right is to reach over and grasp the outlines of his phone to search for an oyster of peace and normality. He thinks about calling Kasuka but he doesn’t know his brother’s work schedule; it’s dark outside yet the clock barely touches the verge of 10 PM and with the hope of resilience, he dials the number without much of a thought and presses the phone flush to his skin. 

 

The call is answered within seconds, barely three rungs strangled by the broke of static followed by the voice soft around the edges as it said “Shizuo?“ with clarity formed under every sound. 

 

Shizuo sighs, relaxing his muscles as he lets himself drop carelessly with his shoulder blades resting on the pillows. “Kadota.” he says and “Sorry to bother.” accentuated with the feeling of guilt calling at such unusual hours. 

 

Kadota hums on the other end, the sound of sudden commotion breaking the stillness in the far background; or maybe Shizuo was too tense to realize the spark of humanity emerging on the other end spilled like a stream of lifeblood bleeding from a mortal wound. There’s a sharp  _'_ _hush’_ coming closer to the ear--Kadota surely--trying to ease the voices that cover the silence around the room and Shizuo half-wishes and half-loathes for the noise to remain for as long as the call will go on. 

 

“Hey Shizuo.” Kadota offers once the other voices are barely rising in whisper mode around his own predominant one. “Haven’t seen you in days, how are you?” 

 

Shizuo knows that among all his friends and the greater number of acquaintances, only Shinra and Celty knew about his little escapade in Nakameguro that seemed to grow in expanse with longer he thinks about Izaya. It stings to his heart and sizes his strength to the point of nearly shattering and erupt yet with the rationality of consequences so when he answers is to regain his own self-tranquillity:

 

“I’m meeting with Izaya.” He says, firm and bordered with the half-truth it spills over the words and Kadota is silent for a long span of time, the voices rising in tonality until it’s the only think Shizuo hears--the only thing that Shizuo could focus his mind on had he given the sharp intake of recognition in the sentence. 

 

He feels lightheaded and his ears gust with the blocked air kept levelling inside his brain and when Kadota answers with  _“_ _Izaya_ _?!”_ is like a bomb gone off next to his own uncovered ear.  

 

He laughs--or rather barks the sound closer to a crack of smile shadowed by anger and hesitancy alike. “Yeah.” he says and “It’s a long story.” as the way to display the certainty of a conversation ended even before the opportunity of opening it firsthand. 

 

Kadota makes the sound of understanding, a shift caught in the interchange of acknowledgment. Shizuo hears faint footfalls followed by the sound of a car door closed and imagine Kadota stepping outside from the comfort of his van, stargazing in the open starlight above or hovering his head to the ground; all but shaping the denotation of what was said between them as the beginning of a bullet fired towards the exposed forehead. “So he’s alive, huh?” 

 

“As much as he can be with... “ 

 

“.. I see. “ 

 

Shizuo knows Kadota doesn’t. There are too many gaps and too little information to understand anything. But Kadota has always been the smarter among himself and Shinra if it were to exclude the quiddity of Izaya’s existence, and if that meant that Kadota could imagine the overall situation, then the result would’ve been exactly the truth or closer to it than the flashing red lights before the passing of a train crushing over the trucks. “So what are you doing now?” he asks instead of demanding further explanations to which Shizuo silently thanks in advance. 

 

“I’m trying” he stars, tasting the hope on the verge of his tongue expanding around his flaws in a familiar sense of candy savoured slowly and then crumbled, burned into ash by the words that blur his vision with the same capacity his anger does it once it takes the control of his limbs: “To fix it.” 

 

He doesn’t know how much time they both remain silent; how much the devouring lack of noise craves Shizuo’s sagaciously to snap, indulging him in shaking under the heat of warm sheets and when Kadota answers is to mangle his own feet the same way Izaya’s were disfigured and numb over the hold of the wheelchair. 

 

 _“Do you want to fix_ it  _or_ him _?”_  

 


	9. Cold

* * *

Izaya doesn’t call again.

 

Shizuo is waiting in the span of dark hours for a text message pleading for the other’s words to calm the backwash of another nightmare or a short call announcing the upcoming meeting, maybe at the same café around the span of usual occupants or maybe in a park with the force of the chilling wind stabbing their faces to numbness. Maybe even a walk along the Meguro River, hearing the waves splashing in reminder of the wheels that slid above the same pavement days ago. He thinks it might be Izaya that wants to be the receiver; him that holds the phone close to the bed or tight in his hold, him who wonders what Shizuo must be doing in the darkest moments of the day, and yet Shizuo has the quick premonition which he’d always felt when he thought about the informant, the feeling that Izaya is deliberately shutting down, that Izaya wants the distance between them to grow bigger and bigger until Shizuo would huff the last restrain he has in him and he’d take the first train back to Ikebukuro.

 

It’s an impossible solution though, and even with his own improbably efficacious power that changed Izaya’s smell into a smoke trail along the pattern of his coat, Shizuo can’t find it in himself to track it down the same way he did once, when his anger burst the crack of normality and his senses were blurred with only the desire of smashing and the loathing of touching. It followed him everywhere, the infatuation of almost, the way his heart would pick up in its beating at the glimpse of silk hair, but Izaya was one in a million, and if the distinctive presence of himself wasn’t enough to draw Shizuo closer, then the weight of the wheelchair made him unique in a way Shizuo hated more than the feeling of razor shaped in between the curve of those slim fingers. The wheelchair itself was a giveaway to Izaya; the element separating him from the other humanity, but Shizuo had walked around for hours squeezing every corner and every sharp intake to a busy crosswalk and the flash of dark metal and lean-drove wheels were as nonexistent as if they were swallowed by the flow of rising snow on the streets.

 

Shizuo thinks he sees Izaya most of the time. He thinks the man jerking his arm behind him in the shadows of the crowd is Izaya swinging a knife to leave a wound deep-cut in his back; he thought the silhouette under the protection of glass dressed oversized is Izaya until the man raised on his feet to follow the path of an unknown road which Shizuo thinks much less than the feeling of disappointment washing over himself.

 

He sleeps less or not at all, the nights pass him by as nothing but meaningless hours on the spectrum of life that Shizuo so recklessly ignores. He feels his lashes dip with every new addition of sleeplessness, his muscles aching in protest at every move he so much as orders his body, commands from the depths of his willpower to execute before he’d drop lifeless on the always-untidy and warmth-spreading sheets over which he pressed his legs deeper in hopes of ease the persistent stillness and cramps along his body. It made him unknowing and oblivious to the cold outside, to the icy snow that formed itself higher on the windowsill; the only distraction was granted by the weight of his phone in his hand and the endless scrolls over unimportant articles and drama-worthy forums in the silent and unvoiced plea of recognition and a preparation in vain for a call or a sharp notification of a text. It’s days after that Shizuo thinks his legs would start to blench from lack of movement, so he takes the too-short jacket over his monochrome bartender uniform and exits the complex with the proficiency of footfalls too hard pressed on the tiles until it urges his hearing and the noise is emerging from both sides, the snow is white laid before his eyes and the warmth of his coat too short-giving so Shizuo trembles himself until the first glance of a bench catches his eye as he trails his way over the span of traffic-filled street and waves of people.

 

The coldness doesn’t stop not even for a heartbeat, but at least his legs are resting and sprawled before him in slight comfort and he brushes his hands together to release the sparks of humid heat. He closes his eyes and angles his head back over the edge as he slides one hand in his pocket to catch around the plastic--tense for the probability of a call going off under his touch like telepathy--and sighs when the phone doesn’t as much as vibrate with an incoming reminder. He feels like drifting off to sleep for the first time in days, the cold stung his cheeks and the exposure of his neck, but Shizuo smiles and waits for the wind to take over his pores in exploration and devour him from inside out, thinking he could drop right there on the length of the bench and imagine the comfort of his couch and a brush of a bony wrist along his forehead and when the sound of a voice raspier then the wind cuts throughout his dream, Shizuo is left to wake in a startled fit of remembrance.

 

“You’re going to freeze to death.” Izaya says and it’s calm as much as it is rough. Shizuo believes the force of the winter air brought Izaya’s voice to deeper lengths and yet the sound of it brings him more relief than anything else.

 

He huffs a breath, the closer he could get to a laugh before shattering and dismiss the mockery with a brush of his head too forceful and violent for his short capacity to grasp the reality before him. He lifts his head, catching the glow of metal before the lifeblood red the other’s eyes carried just in time so Izaya could duck his head and hide his chin under the layers of warm fur and his eyes shadowed dark even in lines with his high cheekbones. “Izaya.” softer than he had expected and by the way Izaya’s fingers twitched visibly under the sleeves dropped over the offering of buttons and switches from the handles, Izaya didn’t expected it too, maybe the fear that the post traumatic fight had on his wake; or maybe the realisation of a sound closer to human than anything he had ever heard from Shizuo. “You haven’t called."

 

“I wasn’t aware that we had a signed contract to meet again.” Izaya replies and the curve of his lips and shimmer of his eyes gave way to the mask already firmly craved in its skin to hide any slipped emotion for the other to absorb even in his sleep-deprived state.

 

“I told you.” Shizuo growls as he tries to adjust his weight on the hard cover “I want to fix the past. That means meeting you, still.”

 

He hears Izaya hum, the stretch of wheels and metal easily clashing as he watches the other position himself to the span of space alongside himself and gazing unblinkingly over the queue of people and cars. “How many times are you going to tell that to yourself?” he asks as he drags his arm over his forehead to angle his temple to his elbow “It’s not as if it all depends on you.”

 

“I know, and that’s why I’m still trying.” Shizuo’s voice finds his way to the grasp of desperancy, his fingers quaver with the craving of holding onto the vulnerability of paler ones left loose for the wind to wound the crests in his palm. “You’re the one not letting me in.”

 

He watches tiredly as Izaya bolts his fingers to a fist and grinds his teeth roughly so the sound of lacquer scrubbing would echo in the space still too-big in Shizuo’s perspective. Izaya’s eyes are wild for a second, two--the whole period their eyes stay attached to the bound of first-sight, then he gasps for a breath as if the pit in his lungs emptied radically by only the magnets of their stare and when he looks again is with a softer delineation viewed in peripheral and the arch of a smirk hesitantly painted on his skin like the scars of canvases abused with extra-toxic oil.

 

“Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough.”


	10. Bangle

It’s easy to get hold of Izaya after that.

 

Shizuo calls as soon as he wakes from the delusion of a foggy dream marked with the familiarity of Ikebukuro and the lingering touch of a palm making its way on the hook of his neck and the sound that echoed from the other end was crystal clear and levelling on higher and brighter tones that twisted his heart in a painful pleasure. They spent the days calling and messaging, making a pattern of their everyday lives to memorize the different exhales of breathing and the colorful sarcasm glowing like headlines on the screen. Out of every kind of interaction they’ve had, Shizuo likes the straight face-to-face gatherings; when the weak rays of sun would blend into the darkness of raven hair and the peculiar eyes would shine with something else than indifference with every new word Shizuo spreads from his parted lips. 

 

Shizuo has the tendency of wanting something more than what he already has. He was never one to expect the on-goings of over-the-board resentment which he experienced on daily basis; his life was described by flows of acquaintances that spoke to him for the time to waste and his tension to ease, his senpai attempted to touch closely the line of frustration once Shizuo’s anger would crest, indulged by a costumer who refused payment or one that doesn’t show up at all; Celty was the only close enough person which he could call as a define friend, maybe shadowed by their unusual strength that cursed the flows of life-beaming streets. Shizuo dreamed of a life of normality and simplicity, yet the multiple distractions those graceful hands and the pointed jaw brought in his so-to-say normality crushed the very thought of the life he had wasted so many time imagining. He wanted to touch, reach over the table or the span of cold outside-air and skim his fingertips along the slight frown hovering in illumination over his lashes or to caress his fingers on the curve of his neck, feeling the heat implanting in his skin like poisonous needles. And as opened as Izaya was, there was still the outline of insecurity that enclosed the very spark of life away from his vision. Shizuo can’t help but keep his eyes wide on the fragile figure, sensing every inch in his body reacting to the shifts of his legs when he tries to angle them under the table or the way his spine would bent to protect the edge of his chin and cheeks from the freezing wind. But Izaya never let him touch, never so much as let him reach the boundary of his curved frame or soft hair, so Shizuo kept the distance all the while he talked; talking about Ikebukuro and about Shinra, about the city that now seemed more like a no-land to him. Izaya often asked about it first, the slips of curiosity blinding the gaze over-sized by the blackness of his dilated irises though he never let the conversation to drift off-course to himself. Shizuo tried and yet he feared if he presses the matter, Izaya would brink them both to base one.

 

It’s long after the days warmed by constant frivolous stares and the sly drag of an upper lip over the extent of softly pale face that Shizuo realizes Christmas is right around the corner. The revelation comes in shapes of green and red and the brightness of lights gold as his bleached hair revealing the high precaution it carried on the crowded streets.

 

It’s usual for him to buy presents. He does it on the special days as a way of showing gratefulness for the act of friendship they had offered as the years go by, the mere fact that they stick with him even after the knowledge of imminent danger (Celty was always the exception and Shinra was the annoying addition that their bounded friendship brought on spotlights in need of constant attention). Lately his tongue was curved with the letters of one name and as long as the days pass by, he stares into crimson while crimson states back with vacillating resilience into caramel mocha and over the words of _“We should spend the Christmas together if you’re so set on isolating yourself with me”_ Shizuo had already made the decision to buy Izaya a present for the first time in forever.

 

He doesn’t know what Izaya likes--the various ways the other hides away his true pleasures are too incandescent for his mind to focus on--so when he jumps over the threshold and strides in the horde of humanity is with an obscure idea of what he should find; of what he should get. The first stores are self-centered; Shizuo is lead by instinct more than the powerful waves of aroma to the on-the-way candy shops. He lingers what he thinks are hours debating which cake is sweeter and better suited for his warm-streaming cappuccino bought a few blocks downwards as he stumbled upon the coziness of an almost-empty Starbucks. He steps around the rows of deserts offered on display for the gourmands with their bills ready in hand for immediate payment or stuffing the sweetness in their mouths with hunger blessed by pleasure and the heat-emanating couches and when he’s turning his head with the intention of catching the white of the apron the waitress wears and order the vanilla strawberry cake with the caramel icing his body shifts too much with the motion as he’s left bare in the front of the window glass. He means to turn but the black bangle caught his eye even with the faintest stroke of his head so when he moves is to step backwards towards the front door and into the cold winter to lay claim over the gentle shape of the object in front.

 

It’s smaller then he expected, but the curvature is printed with the sly feeling of silk, rough around the extremities and over the length grounding it; the black was hallucinating, almost the same shade as the convulsive raven that Izaya ruffled with every beat of the wind. It’s not simple; the bracelet had deeply-craved the outlines of a metallic iron curved and bent and twisted in a way it was impossible to tell what the shape originally meant. Shizuo liked it; it transferred the whole complexity Izaya’s own recklessness reflected in retrospect so Shizuo walked all the way to the cashier and smashed a number of too-many bills on the counter. His heart is beating faster than a hummingbird even from the sight of it; from the feeling of delicate lines that fondle above his skin and he doesn’t know if the beating is getting faster or if the realization of the act finally swept its course in circumspect.

 

It’s on the weight of midnight, when he follows the metallic wires with precision and high-attention that he realizes the telltale of a heart. 

 


	11. Apprehension

* * *

 

“I hate you.”

 

It burns his tongue. It’s the burn that fires in the back of his throat and the ache of the cognizance that those words meant once, when the desire of murder was deep-known in the flexes of his bones. It arches further in his conscience the more he repeats it but even Shizuo knows it sounds like a past’s tease even if he hardly wants to _think_ about the faint possibility to _care_ for Izaya. That sounds worse, at least the part in him that has the capacity of grasping the past like a lifeboat senses that but it gets shorter and weaker with the more the days pass, the more their meetings grow in number and time and Shizuo finds himself with only the peculiarly concern that resonates in his eardrums louder than the constant breathing and thumping in his chest.

 

Izaya is resting, and at least that--even if his face controls visibly with the strain he pulls to hold one leg over the other--sends reassurance in Shizuo’s veins that flow along his muscles calmly. He has one elbow above the extent of his armchair, his eyes fixed on the bracelet in hand as he touches and turns and frowns; Shizuo is certain he caught the soft patters of a pout on his mouth. “Why?” Izaya asks with the amusement barely hidden in the lure of his clear voice. His wrist swifts to make a long angle and expose his smooth skin, lets the bracelet fall on the spot and watches with interest as the colors unite in one tranquil link. “You know buying something for someone means obeisance, and now you tell me you hate me.” Shizuo snorts a wheeze of laugh, sudden and low, brushing the back of his neck until it turned into a growl. “How ironic.”

 

“You’re the one that said he doesn’t like it.”

 

“I never said that.” Izaya replies with ease as he averts his gaze to stare barely into the intensity Shizuo offered with just one outstare trying to contour the lines of happiness on Izaya’s features. “I just said it was worthless, I don’t have a present.”

 

Shizuo sighs, shutting his eyes with the cover of his lashes and the hair falling in slow motion as he rests along the couch with his cup of streaming chocolate milk in his hand trying to cool the temperature; he blows once, twice before attempting a sharp gulp and hums as the heat warms his throat all the way to his aching lungs. “I never expected you to.”

 

“Then why bother?” his voice echoes with a graver force as if the mere thought of Shizuo’s attention on himself brings him the anger Shizuo thought was long ago abandoned and only half-remembered in the fits of disturbing nightmares. “You don’t expect to start over with buying me a _bracelet_ , do you?”

 

Izaya watches Shizuo for as long as the other has his eyes shut still in the giveaway of calmness and peace, his face soften to the point where it could’ve been mistaken from drifting away to sleep with a hazy mind that bleed the fumes away like the smoke lifted higher from a lightened cigarette. Shizuo feels it; the stare is intense and unblinking. He can point Izaya’s eyes, the strain of his jaw or the crease of his forehead with his steady fingertip, smell in the bitterness of black coffee and taste almost on the back of his tongue the scent of it dissolved by his own flows to ash. He cracks a smile only from the thought of it, of feeling Izaya with the ease and elegance he always showed and yet never drifted upon Shizuo in their offhand encounters painted in red and the violet-blue of bruises. “Is that why you didn’t bought me anything?” he asks as he lilts one lash in a perfect cat-narrowed structure. “Is that how far your benevolence is working?”

 

“I believe I showed you more than enough benevolence, Shizuo.” he says and Shizuo never imagined there’d be the day when his mind and ears would seek for the additional _‘-chan’_ at the end like a birthmark of his own name on the other’s lips. “I thought all this time you were congratulating my gratitude, so tell me… “ he stalls as he drops his hand so the bracelet would fall across his opened palm, flexing his fingers so they would held it above like a trophy won after years of practice, as if Izaya was proud of its existence. “Why this one?” and Shizuo would lie if he’d say Izaya didn’t realize the shape of a heart stabbing the smooth surface with the force of its strings or the way Shizuo emerged tension and frustration completely different from what he was used to.

 

He heard his heart beating like it was on the verge of exploding, the ache growing in intensity until he could feel the muscle smash through the stern and outside his chest; had the premonition Izaya could see his own fracture above his soul and the pain in his chest was persistent so he shifted his head to the glow of the window, slowly open both his eyes to the distractions of various passers-by or the falling of flakes landing on snowy ground. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing here yet.”

 

Izaya takes a sharp inbreathe thudding in the breadth. Shizuo expects no answer. He should--with the constant rejection he slams headfirst into whenever he demands for an explanation--but he demands a reply and a cause with as much force that he can barely handle to keep his lips in place from articulating the consonants and vowels of _please_   _say it_ and when he catches the first sting of metal he turns in time with Izaya as the other clicks the bangle in place and leans his hand to grip around his phone. “Therapy” he says when Shizuo thinks he’s going to ignore the softly-voiced question to bury himself in the flow of forums and ill-defined images. Izaya does open his phone though, and he scrolls, his wrist fluctuating with the exposure of the metallic wires up-front, fingers typing and pausing until he swings it in the clear-focus of Shizuo’s eyes. “Thought it’ll be obvious.”

 

Shizuo doesn’t know what he’s looking at. The screen offers the front of a high white building which he’d encircled a few times in the span of his frustrated days, but he was too indiscrenible at the time, the vague names don’t ring any bells for all he knows and the vague numbers are just dots displayed under a fancy description of medical health-care.

 

He knows, surely, what the purpose of it is. It’s a direct screamer to all the problems laid before him, too complex and fragile he fears to lay claim to and risk breaking them, but Izaya smiles behind the phone, his lips upturn as his eyes spark with red behind the lashes; Shizuo is sure Izaya never looked so much like _Izaya_ until now, sure his heart skipped over a few monotone beats and stopped to reverse the feeling.

 

And if Izaya’s change was temporary, only sustained by his physical state, Shizuo didn’t know if his was as cynical or if it was something he didn’t even want to think about. 

 


	12. Vehemence

* * *

 

Shizuo hates his heart.

 

He used to hate the things surrounding him; the people buzzing around his calm state or the crooked street sign left bare for his fists to crumble about and twist incontestable under his hold dominated by the befitting temporary anger. He hated Izaya, the smell intoxicating the air in his wake, the scent knocking out his nostrils whenever he caught it flowing like a stream of smoke, the smile cutting through his vision razor-deep and curved, deeper and harder until the voice lifted with farce and the innuendo of innocence poured over his frustration like salt over the open wound. And while he hated his force, the strength that could kill thousands with the swings of his bruised knuckles wrecking the people’s skulls and bones, Shizuo had never thought about hating himself. More than half of his life spent with Izaya’s silhouette hovering like his own shadow made him acknowledge his power and accept it with no bounds rather than isolate himself to a life lived with no connections and lack of emotions. And yet now, he felt the pressure in the pit of his stomach escalate to the edge of his lungs and spread the lethality of it in the back of his throat like the constant allure to sickness. Shizuo thought he was sick, the days blurred in weeks which he feared will grow to months. Tom send him multiple messages, asking if he feels fine and how much he’ll stay in that one city until Shizuo stuttered and changed the subject to talk about the various clients, thoughts driven far away; Shinra called occasionally, especially when Celty was gone and Celty was the only one keeping his rationality in check for the width of minutes they’d exchange text messages, but it all came back to _Izaya_ , to Izaya’s crushed bones and the half-delusion of a new personality.

 

Izaya was another person, one that hypnoses him with his stare that blended into softance or his voice that creeped under his skin like bacteria, so easy and pleasurable he felt it like a breeze. Izaya is beautiful; Shizuo sees it now, the desire that burned into him to reach and touch the sharp outlines in his enclosed gap, the impulse of touching now stronger than crushing, than marking the other’s skin with the colors of his blow to dismiss him as the oddity of his world; the one that brought him convulsions with one stare, so vile and hash that now was the string of wires keeping him in place. He felt his heart thumping faster while thinking about it, or when he talked with him--it was already a known fact that whenever Izaya would move around the city with hidden difficulty, Shizuo would feel his muscles ache in the reaction to hold and directionate, always showing too much of his concern to the other, and yet Izaya didn’t notice, or if he did, he never brought it in the light. However, they did talk with no restrains, laugh and smile with precaution so the other would not as much observe the curve of the lips and Shizuo wants more, wants to have the other’s presence near him like the light of a lighthouse so when Izaya sent him the text _‘Let’s meet at my place tomorrow’_ followed by the display of numbers indicating the street and address, Shizuo sent _‘Yes’_ faster than lighting and ripped the half-eaten dessert’s plastic plate he had bought from the closest cafeteria. 

 

Izaya’s home is smaller than his previous apartment. For once, it’s constructed with a single floor; the living room is minimal from what Izaya used to have, connected straight to the kitchen in a way it offered a cosy feeling of familiarity.

 

They didn’t speak much. Shizuo hanged his jacket in the nearest closet, they both said their respective greetings than Izaya turned around towards the kitchen and Shizuo was left to choose between following in high pursuit after the other or drop uncarelessly on the couch. He turned on the television, words and images from the news shifting unregulated as the pixels combined on his retina--Shizuo could hear the noise like a bass, low and distant and pleasing despite everything else; he sighed and closed his eyes, relaxed under the dim illumination emanated from the screen until he could swim into the illusion of _home_.

 

“Have you read all those books?”

 

“I’ve read about a half. The previous resident owned them, I’m not going to deride him, but the guy has awful taste in books.” Shizuo snorted as he read the titles of numerous scientific and alien related works.

 

“As if you have better tastes.”

 

“At least I look for the reality not complete fiction.” The sound was faint coming from the corner; Shizuo heard Izaya turn on the oven and wondered if he should go and see if Izaya needs a hand--or rather someone who could move around easily. “And _I_ at least read.” He barely made out the mockery behind it as his hands pressed into fists and his feet rubbed the carpet in constant moves to sit up and away from the comfort zone and head-back to the verity. “ _Ah_ , living without Namie-san sure pulled a string in me.”

 

Shizuo straighten sharply at the mention of the name, the resonance of living with somebody transpired through his soul; he turned fully, his gaze casted on the back of the wheelchair as Izaya stirred the drinks. _“Who?”_

 

Izaya laughed, the sound of it reaching his ears with strong intensity and raised one arm lazily, waving it in the air to brush it off as completely unimportant; Shizuo watched as the heart shined in the brilliance from the far-glowing light. “Nobody important, Shizuo. Really inconsequential, I assure you.” He turned, his raven hair moving along with the strain in his arms as he pushed the wheels with calculated force, the tray secured on the knees. “If there is a human I wouldn’t wish to see again, it’s her, as endlessly and passionately I love them all.” Izaya winked, holding up one mug as he reached Shizuo’s space; “Local news, really Shizuo?” Izaya taunted as he shifted so he’d stand in the line of the couch, his eyes skimming through the program in front: “I never thought you’d be so invested in this city, when are you moving in?”

 

He shook his head, relaxing once he caught the first streams of sweetness from the movement. He looked down to the mug fully filled with the liquid that twisted his flows into the desperation of drinking it with one gulp. “You hate me and yet the only person you don’t want to see again it’s her. And also, how can you even _drink_ milk?”

 

“Chocolate milk is a very convinient invention, especially if you don’t add anything sweet to the bomb of sugary already existent.” He watched as Shizuo growled in the back of his throat, pulling his lips together nimbly--as Shizuo narrowed his eyes to the smoke of saccharine in the air and absorbed it all throughout, saw as the line of his jaw relaxed as the smell settled in and the tension in his mouth loosen to a softer smile. “And I don’t hate you.” he said and Shizuo turned sharply, his eyes wide and mouth parted as he held tighter so he could save any spilling milk. “After all, I opened my door for you.” Izaya continues as he sinks further in the warmth of his chair, his eyes never leaving nor wavering from their direct spotlight. “With my vulnerability, I wouldn’t want to be murdered right now. It’s not really that fun like this.”

 

Shizuo snorted again, his hands tighten around the hot foretoken of euphoria. “It wouldn’t be _fun_ either way, Izaya.”

 

“ _Ah_.” Izaya said, one finger travelling on the fuzzy path of metallic heart as Shizuo felt his own move madly, ripping through his ribcage and the pressure inside his ears until he was aware of all the surroundings and the voices coming from the forgotten distraction--the lone sign of luminescence; and in the unmistakable rush of obstructions, Izaya’s voice toppled over it all like the thunder in the summer rain. “We’ll see about that.”

 


	13. Dejected

* * *

It’s easy to find the hospital.

 

Shizuo remembers the address like the back of his palm, and the streets became the new familiarity that burned in his skull from within. He had planed on going long before; just the same day he found out about Izaya’s wonderings around the institution’s halls and yet he wasn’t certain if it was something Izaya would fully approve to so he turned off the implications of the conversation, avoided--as embitter as he would be--the topic of Izaya’s health thoroughly. He was so fixated on helping, fixing Izaya that he overlooked the turbulences of their past and held onto Izaya’s existence that was spreading into him warmer and further and deeper until the only think he could remember was the steady gaze the other sent in his direction, the velvety lines of his physiognomy and the rhythm of his own uneven breathing.

 

It’s Izaya the one that suggested coming. It could’ve been just the delusion of tiredness that obscured his ethics and made him blur out the off-topic reclaim of ‘ _You’re free to come and see’_ before he dozed off on the scope of his wheelchair until Shizuo jerked him off of it, sizing one firm and hesitant hand on the crock of the other’s neck and shoulder.

 

It wasn’t hard to track Izaya’s room; he asked first thing when he walked in, the woman behind the counter eyeing him from the top of his head to his lower half, frowning over the lists of visitors. It made him impatient, his hands shifted into unyielding fists and then the woman burst out a breath, nodding _‘Yes, I see you sir’_ as Shizuo widened his eyes, frown dissolved into the giveaway of confusion and he uplifted his hand to grasp around the visitor ticket before turning on his heels and advanced further to the waiting elevator. It settled inside his chest, warming his pumping veins with the heat of a sunshine; _Izaya wanted me here_ he repeated all the way watching as the floors changed followed by the cling of a notification below the digital display. He jogged more than walked, his footfalls following in high pursuit as he skimmed through the numbers to the far located room in the back.

 

Izaya might be waiting patiently for him looking outside the glass to the endless corridor or tab his way from a forum to another, head buried for full-focus on his phone.

 

But Shizuo wasn’t really the best when it came to predictions, and his heart burst out as the first hard _thump_ echoed in the emptiness offered by the lack of patients or gawping doctors. It was almost soundless, the fall nearly as graceful as the person causing it, exposed to his vision as he took the sharp turn and bumped into his own reflection over the much more deformed attestation that screamed multiple definitions of _wrong_ with one glance. Shizuo could not move, his feet dig in the space underfoot and his hands were loose around his sides, not even the faintest recollection of a fist or a vein withdrawing his forehead into a crest of frustration--because he wasn’t frustrated nor angry, his senses died along with the proximity of what he was seeing, so close he could reach and touch the fractures through the window--and he was struck by the image of it; Izaya walking, Izaya falling with no one to hold him still, Izaya crushing over the machinery in an offering of being used, Izaya feeling the pain of the collision as he bumped over the curves of metal and hard plastic and Shizuo could only stare dumbly as Izaya stood lying flat on the floor, one arm over his face and teeth clenched together in the exposure of soreness.

 

“ _Izaya_.. “ he said softly only for his own ears, for the realization of _not a nightmare_ which he wished it all was and once his voice hit his hearing with a force similar to a trunk on the highway, Shizuo gasped a sound ripping through his ribcage and pushed open the door forcefully than indented, the force of it causing the wind to catch in between as the sound filled the silence. Izaya twitched, pivoting his head to the side with his cavernous eyes shadowed by what Shizuo realized were too indistinguishable for tears.

 

 _“Fuck.”_ he blurred out and then: “What are you trying to do?” as he scanned the space around for a possible assistant taking down notes or a relaxed outpatient.

 

Izaya was shocked to say the least; he tried to rub his eyes with the back of his wrist but they remained fully opened and growing in the intensity of their shadowing as his lashes lowered to take in the cause of disturbance. It wasn’t until Shizuo was squatted alongside him and his hands held the heat in his cheeks as he stroked the soft skin with his thumb, the friction relaxing and shooting, that Izaya closed his eyes entirely for the pleasure of accepting it without the foresee of the one inducing it.

 

 _“Don’t.”_ Shizuo says and it sounds more broken than Izaya had ever heard it before. “Please open your eyes, I need to know if you’re--”

 

“I’m not dying, Shizuo.” as he pushed himself on the floor to stand by himself; Shizuo’s hand sliding to the curve of his spine. “Stop exaggerating.”

 

“I’m _not_ exaggerating, Izaya, you _fell_ ; why are you even standing?!” Shizuo said in a rush and he tried to _not_ stab his nails into the other’s back. “Is that the therapy you were talking about?”

 

Izaya sighed, leaning for a better support on the back of his palms. He felt his bones crush again against the pressure and he sucked in the painful gasp as Shizuo grasped around his arm to bring him flush against his chest. Izaya couldn’t protest it, not even wanting the opposite, as he let himself absorb the heat and sweet cologne unfolded by the weight of his uniform. “It’s usually done with additional assistance, but I took the liberty of giving myself a head start.”

 

Shizuo paused in the action of rubbing his open hand along his arm, stopping as if paralyzed and Izaya feared he’d realize what he’s doing and push the other away, leaving him to fall backwards on the cold floor like the last time; his heart convulsing and his lungs stilled with the scarcity of air and Shizuo sighed, warm and reassuring as he moved his hand slower; up and down. “You’re ridiculous.”

 

Izaya hummed, unwinding his concern with the fulfilment of the feeling. “I’m damaged.”

 

He could feel Shizuo tensing in his hold, the stroking calmer and slower as if being afraid he’d create more harm than the comfort it offered. _“Izaya.”_ he said sternly in his ear “You’re not.” but he didn’t knew if he tried to ease the other’s belief or if he tried to reassure himself.

 

“Look at me, Shizuo.” He said as he waved one hand to his hair-covered face in a demonstration of self-mockery. “I’m broken beyond repair.” And he rose his head, the eyes halfway as empty as the first time he saw them and Shizuo felt the prickles of constant heat smearing behind his eyeballs. “Why are you still here?”

 

Shizuo couldn’t answer to that; as much as he’d try, the words would twist in the back of his tongue and would reproduce back as unintelligible sounds. He lowered his hand instead, gripping the other’s wrist as he massaged the pattern of wires still strangulating Izaya’s circulation with a closed and satisfactorily squeeze.


	14. Vexation

* * *

 

“Kill me.”

 

Shizuo couldn’t grasp around Izaya’s rationality. He had tried in the last days, the curiosity as much as the necessary deep-inside craved of protection made him focusing fully on Izaya and Izaya himself, yet he bumped headfirst into the complexity the other sustained, and the easy reminder of what their days had been. Shizuo wasn’t certain he’d ever forget their past; the horizontal wound of razor was pinkish on his chest, itched at the touch and Shizuo picked up the habit of stroking his fingers along it, feeling its crests and softance as he reviewed the short span of events culminating into the knife slashing open his own flesh. It was all meaningless, he realized, the fights were nothing but his way of deriving the beauty and grace that Izaya emerged from his thoughts; that every time the idea of looking straight into the crimson eyes and feel the pressure of blood pumping under his hold on Izaya’s arm, on Izaya’s neck, he’d walk right into a hunt that’ll end with bruises instead of kisses until Shizuo acknowledged the desire to brush his lips to the other; the feeling aching in his chest now with the firm explanation that failed to build up in his brain from the start.

 

He wondered, more than ever now how does Izaya feel. The thought of one sided attraction was too harsh to think about, and if anything that his sixth sense could pick up from the past was Izaya’s mutual obsession and half-complex of being near Shizuo, breathing in the same air, same space even if it meant the anger’s erupting point. Shizuo wanted to know how it’ll be like to have his thoughts in length-reach, to see them as if they’re numbers displayed on the telephone agenda. Shizuo knows he attaches to people and he also knows Izaya hates it. The one define characteristic about the other was his abnormal ability of not caring, distorting it with the secure idea that attachment is bothersome, friends could be predictable and therefore boring; it was a cruel and twisted way of thinking but Shizuo only saw the loneliness of it now.

 

Izaya was lonely. It wasn’t something he voiced or complained about; as much as he was used to complaining about everything--and yet it was the confirmed attribute that unsettled Shizuo to the core of his bones, because Izaya thought, anticipated, he’d be alone even in those months of constant recovery, constant treatment and unsuccessful progress. And Shizuo wasn’t the lonely type; sure he was isolated by the nature but the insolence brought him closer to the people of high trust and precise dedication all the while he’d make friends as Izaya struggled with barely two close acquaintances. All Shizuo ever tried was self isolation in the form of protecting the others from his strength; he wasn’t talkative compared to the endless remarks Izaya would make even if unnecessarily or disregarded. Izaya’s mind was complex, powered back by the complexity of the various ways he used psychology on others or the practised and expert manipulation. Shizuo was almost afraid to wonder now what Izaya’s mind is like; it was nothing near the edge of psychopathy, but Izaya was the type of person that liked to play with death’s strings longer than indispensable. Izaya would always walk on the line, jumping or skipping in his wake; he loved the sensation of adrenaline and the emptiness of what’s it to happen, vertiginous as if completely drunk, but he’d always make sure there’s enough backspace for him to stumble over if he’d so much as slip one toe off the edge.

 

Izaya wasn’t suicidal. Just high-functional masochistic.

 

And now Izaya dropped the 45 calibre pistol on the chessboard and asked Shizuo to kill him.

 

The first think Shizuo looked for in Izaya’s stare was the significant glimmer of _joke_ in his eyes. The sarcasm behind his stares was brighter with every passing minute they were together, Shizuo even felt as if Izaya would be able to bloom in the same way, but he was knocked out by the sharp glare. Izaya was not offering the quirk of a lip or the mockery behind his eyes that’ll turn down any implications of seriousness. Izaya’s eyes were shadowy empty and Shizuo felt his heart sink forcefully in his stomach.

 

“What...”

 

“Come on.” Izaya pressed his fingertips to the board game, pushing it further so the gun would be closer. His voice was hoarse and atypical, rough around each individual sound and Shizuo felt his body gone numb under his piercing gaze. “Take the gun and shoot me.”

 

He couldn’t look away, the weight of the black barrel pointed towards Izaya lying on the chess battlefield was forcing him to hold his vision straight even though he met the emptiness of a blank stare. This was worse than anything; Izaya always looked for danger but he never took the highway to it, always hidden on the surrounding routs to view it from peripheral perspective, from merely an observant point of knowledge--Izaya had always loved to tempt Shizuo in a possible deadly fight but he never asked to be killed; not once before the last encounter in Ikebukuro when he finally gave it all up. For Izaya to ask Shizuo to kill him was the smash-up for all of his nightmares to come back full force.

 

 _“Izaya.”_ He said perceiving the sudden soreness around his neck, “What are doing?”

 

“I’m asking you-- _entreating_ you to kill me, Shizuo.” he huffed the beginning of a laugh that broke under his tongue in a mangled sob. “Just think about it. It’s like chess, though you kill the king definitively.” as he shifted his arms deprived from their trembling hold and touched the metal with the bony exposure of flesh around his fingers, pushing it towards him as if throwing the ball on a court field. “Finish the game, Shizuo.”

 

He couldn’t think about who was going to win, what small talk they’ve exchanged as he stepped inside the welcoming area of Izaya’s living room; he could only hear Izaya now and track every move he made to embed it deeply in his conscience “I’m.. “ he stumbled over the blur of multiple thoughts that rushed in and out and that sized his lungs to the incapacity of breathing normally; feeling every inhale like a thread of burning iron. _“No.”_

 

 _“Fucking--”_ the gun was switched as Izaya took it in his hold, knuckles white and flexed on every curve. He breathed once before raising it to eye level, pointing straight ahead to the susceptible forehead brushed by bleached blond. “It’s _this_ simple, just take the fucking aim and pull the trigger!”; the gun echoed in the room as he bumped his arms on the table. Izaya growled, his vision transported into venom and red light disturbingly grazing the offering behind the lashes.

 

It was impossible for Shizuo to track down every move the other made, the arm bending, the head hovering as his raven hair shadowed the paleness of his face into a tenebrous black and when Izaya switched off the safety and pulled the barrel flush to his temple, Shizuo screamed, his limbs finding balance on the table as he lounged to snatch the weapon from the other’s hold and with a jerk of his hand hurled it far away on the floor.

 

 _“You’re crazy!”_ his voice reverberated between them, the desperation deeply contoured in his tone as he reached and shook Izaya onto the backseat. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?!”

 

“You..” he said breathless as Shizuo could feel the demarcate of his clavicle pressed to his palm and ache in protest from the tight grip that he could not control. “Why don’t you...”

 

“Why don’t I _what_?” he snarled, looking into the defying crimson that swam back in place and the slightly quaver under his stare. “Are you _insane_?! You can’t pull that shit out and make me kill you! I won’t, you hear me? I don’t want you to die, Izaya!”

 

Izaya huffed, his hands moving with difficulty and slowness on the strain muscle arm that kept him in place, crushed deeply in the softance of his wheelchair. He found a resting point, soft to the touch and pleasurable, slightly relaxed when he lingered over Shizuo’s elbows and sighed, angling his head further until it bumped into Shizuo’s chest. He squeezed his arms, bringing him closer and Shizuo relaxed when he saw the fragile way Izaya moved, too scared to make a wrong move that’ll push him away, and Shizuo brushed his fingers through his mellow hair, shooting a breath in against the other’s neck and shifted his position to the comfort of the couch. The angle was uncomfortable, his arm stuck between Izaya’s head and the metallic beginning of the sideways handle, his legs bent and spread with the lingering tension that pulsed into him like a reminder of hopelessness; but Izaya was calming in his embrace, breathing softly into his vest and held tighter around his arms as if to stop Shizuo’s possible retreat, and Shizuo warmed Izaya’s hearing with the hushed suspire blown in his ear--he closed his eyes and left his hold to tighten and his senses to pick up the rhythm of the other’s heartbeat craved deeply as his own rapture. 

 


	15. Aspiration

* * *

 

Shizuo wasn’t one to make New Year’s resolutions.

 

He was certain, in any case, that he’d break every revolutionary made up plan he thought of at the start of the year, and as much as he tried while younger, when the pressure of kids spreading out their achievements with gleam in their eyes and the proud flickering smiles of their parents, Shizuo always made it worse. The new year come for him with the promise of deep-violet wounds and the cutting edge of adrenaline instead of buying the new console model or some recommended book series, so Shizuo learned to shatter his own dreams firsthand with the conclusion of violence written in the future. 

 

It was pointless to shape his future in a couple of ideas, especially when Izaya followed at fast speed in his wake to crave the adrenaline himself and leave Shizuo to deal with the aftermath. Izaya was always there to ruin his days with the weight of his knife pivoting on his nerves and Shizuo thought that if wishes on the break of fireworks could do anything, repeating the longing of seeing Izaya dead would eventually became reality. It was, though, just a self-mockery to his ineptitude to hide his frustration and leave the flow of ignorance control him; a thought that was made to forestall the desire to fight but resulted in the multiplication of it to the never-ending spiral of brawls.

 

Shizuo didn’t want Izaya to die--it wasn’t something that the incapacitated state of the other influenced his conscience, rather it was the type of protection that built inside his veins at first sight, the tremor of his heartbeat when the realisation of non-acceptance came with the too-soft skin for his vigour that propelled his fist in the straight direction with an arch so wide and determined it could’ve bruised Izaya’s cheek violet for weeks on end. Shizuo never liked rejection; to think that the only person that send his heart on a speeding wheel with one stare or lopsided smirk was the one fragile enough person that’ll shatter under his hold was adequate for him to convulse in the immediate hatred which he’d direct towards his own strength. It wasn’t Shizuo the one that damaged izaya; not even Izaya was at blame--his abnormality of dancing along death on the edge of danger was as expected as Shizuo’s denial for his own denial of love was--the only principle cause was the strength, or maybe it was the calamity of the day, the gangs merged within each other, Saika slashing people open on the verge of madness, Celty finally losing her self-control and in the end Izaya’s presence between it all, waving around with a merciful grace and nimbleness that scared Shizuo half to death, blinded him under the overly expended adrenaline as he turned off his senses in addition to his fists.

 

Shizuo knew if he can’t find Izaya these days, it would be a bad sign. It wasn’t something Izaya voiced himself, probably it wasn’t even true--probably the gun incident was another way of testing him in spite of everything but Izaya hardly gave attention to Shizuo’s actions now more than his existence and capacity of sticking around for so long. Despite that, and everything that Izaya was or is; Shizuo couldn’t restrain his shaking when he walked into a bare apartment with the opened bottles of wine nearly empty and a telephone forgotten on the coffee table blinking helplessly with the last notifications from his own texts.

 

 _“Izaya!”_ Shizuo shouted in the loneliness, twisting the doorknobs of every room open to duck his head inside and squirm his eyes to the darkness, breathing in the cold air and huff desperation as any sign of Izaya was nonexistent. He grabbed the edges of his phone, held it tight in his hold wishing for maybe a quick notification from the other, one text emitted from one of Izaya’s phones or the sound of wheels on the tiles but it was just as silent, any noise dug deep behind his eardrums and it wasn’t until the stroke of the clockworks hit half minutes before the New Year that Shizuo remembered the fireworks.

 

He run out the door, not bothering locking it but closing it with a force that it would’ve break the hinges itself. The elevator area was open, and yet the steady light offered the reddest denial of access, and Shizuo could wait--the gap of seconds being shorter than the minutes he’d spent climbing over the stairs, but Shizuo’s legs moved on instinct more than intent and by the time he heard the chime of a free-for-use implement, he’d already passed two floors entirely. The door to the roof was cold to the touch, rough and metallic, almost unused giving away the lack of attention brought over it. It made him think about high-school, about the soft breeze that’ll caress through his hair as he relaxed under the warm sun in clear-view, with the back pressed to the walls of the school and eyes cast down to the school grounds, or about Izaya, the recklessness of his to jump over the safety that the waist-tall fence provided and watch the lingering schoolers with no restriction or drawback. Shizuo had always expected Izaya to be on the roof when he wanted to avoid the quantity of strangers and when he switched the knob he breathed in the harshness of the wind blown his way before opening his eyes to relax to the new light, his heart hammering on one slim twine that trembled with every sharp intake his lungs would manufacture until the lines of shadows blended in his vision to give out the contour of a steady wheelchair. Shizuo sighed, relieved and with the faintest shine of amusement and as he closed the door behind him, the shirk of it louder than necessary, Izaya inclined his head to the side for the clear focus of his eyes. “I’m not jumping.” he said as their eyes locked and remained glued to each other while Shizuo advanced with more gravity and pressure than he had intended; Izaya wasn’t affected though, or if he was, he made it a great show of not showing it. “Thought I must tell you that, now that you think I’m suicidal.”

 

“You are.” Shizuo huffed as his hand reached unthinkable for the other’s head. “No normal person would drop a gun and asks to be killed-- _point it to themselves and close to seconds from blowing their brains on a_ fucking _chessboard.”_ as he cradled the other's hair around his fingers in a slow stroke.

 

“Good thing you stopped me.” Izaya purred from the back of his throat, his neck bent slightly in a half-suggestion of attention and Shizuo took it for granted, trailing his fingertips along Izaya’s skin closer to the exposure of flesh hidden under the red scarf tugged carefully over his jacket. “Just who would be as insensible to kill themselves?”

 

 _“Shut up.”_ He said frowning with an inflexible tone that’ll hide away any giveaway of the laugh already formed on his lips. “Don’t joke about that.”

 

Izaya laughed instead, angling his head to hover over his chest as Shizuo resumed to stroking the far edges of his raven hair falling over his neck. “I tried it the first night.” Izaya said, silencing the humming in Shizuo’s throat and the movement of his fingers paralyzed over his numbing heat within the skin. “I couldn’t bare accepting the way I am now I think it’s the best vindication. I just pulled the roof door and pushed my way to the edge.” Izaya’s voice was levelled and clear to Shizuo’s ears, his hand cupping around the downside of Izaya’s ear as he could feel the breath emerging with words on his palm. “I tried to mitigate what was already done by exposing the world of myself for good, but jumping off the roof was not the way to do it.” he quirked his head sideways, watching Shizuo from the corner of his eye and gazed over his parted lips as if Shizuo found difficulty in holding back his own words. “It’s a too impersonal way of dying, and I never liked meddling with overused solicitude.”

 

Shizuo barked a small laugh through his teeth. “You always meddle.” he said instead as he grasped the windswept cheek for the protection of falling snowflakes, his thumb skimming over the softance that seemed impossible for his pointed cheekbones and Shizuo was overcome by it. “That’s a known fact.”

 

“You trying to kill me was also a known fact.” Izaya hummed as Shizuo caught his crimson stare drop to the exposure of his lips--parted, cold and nearer for Izaya to raise his head and touch them with the tip of his nose. “What made you change your mind?”

 

Shizuo knew Izaya was playing, or at least half-playing; he knew Shizuo didn’t wanted him dead now, the thought of _before_ could remain as deep buried under their past as it could go. Shizuo could play it back to him, throw the ball over the fence and into Izaya’s grounds again with the expectation of a throw-back, and yet he didn’t; his eyes narrowed with the concentration of his hazy vision as he looked for the slightly opened up lips in a something more than the usual satirical smirk and said: “It must be that I’m quite infatuated with you.” before huddling his head in the remaining space between the two of them.

 

Izaya was quick to respond, his jerk faster and more precise, pressing his lips in inquiry before Shizuo pressed harder, closing the gap around their lips and enclosing them to remain flushed; breathing slowly as Shizuo felt every intake the other made thumping in his own system as Izaya licked the blue stains craved by wind and snowflakes from his bottom lip with more security than what he exerted before. Shizuo felt his muscles languish and numb, heat overtook him as he closed his eyes tight and opened up to outreach the other’s parted offering of pleasure, loosing himself in the way of tasting and exploring around Izaya’s awaiting mouth. He heard the hums and occasional purring die out and eclipsed over by louder sounds resonating in his ears; Izaya moaned, holding unyielding to the helm of his shirt and rocking his head further to spread the warmth in between them until Shizuo felt his lashes brush gently over his cheeks. It was warm, the heat closer to the sun blinding in summer but pleasurable, filling Shizuo’s heart with the yearning and desire for more as he gripped around Izaya’s hair, tugging it back to try and expose the outlines of the other’s neck. It worked halfway; Izaya’s full-mouthed whimper giving the sound of undertaking the incoming pleasure as he gasped, the force of it resonating in his own throat but an explosion of a bang echoed in the earshot, sudden and low as Izaya widen his eyes and braced his arms around Shizuo’s shoulders. The colors came next, brightening the darkness of the sky and doubled the first bark of the noise until the sparks of it deluded in their brains, easing the craving and breathing until they both could feel their hearts calming and their lips pumping with bruises and nibbles.

 

Shizuo never made resolutions, but feeling the warmth of Izaya’s hand in his was the only wish he could seek for. 

 


	16. Reminiscence

* * *

 

“Come with me.” Shizuo says as he pushes pressure over the bone, enclosing his grip in a firm squeeze and trailing the fist along the skin, hearing the softly cracks protest under the hold and relax in surrender. The knots eased under his palm while he massaged the curve of its outlines with precision and rightness and feeling Izaya shifting his body in the little squirms of the pleasing touch.

 

“I’m quite busy for that now, but either way, I’d accept your whim for take out.” Izaya retorted with a sigh capitulating to the pleasure of extending his legs around the exposure of Shizuo’s waist. It’s rigid to the touch, his skin seemingly brushing over a flat clothed stone, but the heat outspread under his own veins from the light friction and Shizuo’s gut felt more comfortable than the hard space he was sprawled over.

 

“Not take out.” Shizuo huffed as he worked on sprawling his legs wider, pushing himself in the space between as Izaya rocked his back to arch in line with Shizuo’s chest. “Not really.” He said while watching the frown on the other’s face, as Izaya shut his mouth in a hiss of pain. “Come in Ikebukuro.” Shizuo clarified and Izaya gasped under his restrained lips, opening his eyes to blink away the widening surprise and Shizuo couldn’t hold his chuckle anymore. “With me.”

 

Izaya stared, feeling the knots tighter then before and he tried to bring his arms further and grope around Shizuo’s shoulders for support as he felt his spine give away and his knees waver. He was lost, more now by the intensity the other hovered over himself hidden behind his clear caramel eyes than the offering at hand and when Shizuo spoke was only the acknowledging of lips moving and closing around the letters before the words could form any sort of coherency in his conscience. “Spread your legs wider.”

 

“That’s as wider as they can go, Shizuo.” He said after he was certain his tone would not tremble on the edge of confusion and exhilaration.

 

 _“Don’t.”_ Shizuo said as he moved his leg higher and pressed on his knee, the feeling of it transfused in his veins like needles. “It sounds weird when you call me like that.”

 

“I thought you hated it?” Izaya offered as he reached for Shizuo’s vest and arched his spine back, tilting his head to reach closer and breathe in the air from Shizuo’s lungs in his own like the trail of smoke raising from the half-lit cigarette. Shizuo even smelled like one; the bitterness of the taste still fresh on his tongue and Izaya could move closer and feel it on his own.

 

“I thought I hated _you_ too, but I don’t. And I still find it unnerving, is just that _Shizuo_ is… “

 

“Too formal?” Izaya tried to help as he closed his lashes over his eyes and left the smell of Shizuo-chan fill his thoughts instead of the pain from his broken limbs. “Really, and you’d like me to call you _Shizuo-chan_ instead?”

 

Shizuo grunted as he pushed harder than necessary on the back of his knee, hearing the crack finally bent into place and lowering Izaya’s leg flat on the floor. “I don’t know, I just don’t like it.”

 

“It’s fine by me, at least we’d have some memories from the past, _Shizu-chan_.” he said pushing himself off and feeling Shizuo’s hand firmly on his back, keeping him still as he leaned on his arms. Shizuo shifted, his legs brushing Izaya’s sides gently and gripped the other around in his arms, bringing him flush to his chest as he could nuzzle his nose in the soft hair and kiss eagerly on his neck.

 

“Don’t push the line, _flea_.” He said before dropping one lazy kiss between Izaya’s shoulder blades, feeling the tremor of it emerging in his body like aftershocks. Izaya laughed though, lilting his head on his shoulder for Shizuo to lick his way on the colon of his neck. Shizuo hummed appreciation and leaned over the gap to close his mouth around the flesh and bite strongly, feeling Izaya’s vein thumping underneath then tasted his cologne as it dissolved in his own flows. “So what you say?”

 

Izaya still trembled when Shizuo whispered lowly in his ear, he’s fingers playing absently with the hem of his shirt, listening--securing every sound Shizuo made in the back of his mind--as he nibbled harshly on his lower lip.

 

“I think one trip back won’t be that bad.”

 

Izaya always had the obsession of following Shizuo and pushing his boundaries as far as they’ll go, but closer and spread together in a mess of combined limbs, feeling the heat of the other as his own and hearing Shizuo breathe on his neck softly while tightening his hold around his waist had always been Izaya’s aspiration. 

 


	17. Homecoming

* * *

 

Ikebukuro is quieter than he had expected.

 

It seemed as if the absence of them both brought a defined struggle out of the abnormalities and the city became overnight the perfect place he had always dreamed of. The streets were crowded, as usual, but people were walking straighter, no one was turning on their heels at every laugh, no one was looking over their shoulders as they passed a vending machine; people were laughing, high schoolers walked in groups of friends bragging about unimportant issues as they skimmed their way through. It was like their presence alone made people scared, or it was just the way he used to see it before, transfused by his own habit of constant looking back or around, averting his eyes from a street sign or an empty trashcan. Izaya was worse though; Shizuo could see even from behind as the other trembled and pushed his hood over his face in furious and slightly rhythmic way, trying to hide his identity away from the unknown stares. It wasn’t unusual for them to stare--Shizuo came back and as much as he wanted to think otherwise, his absence must’ve been made acknowledged by the whole city and mostly it must’ve been with the same joy that was spread when Izaya had gone missing--and pushing in his wake a man in a wheelchair was definitely something of interest that’ll turn the heads around to gawp in their direction. The concealed fact that both men torturing the fragments of peace in the city returned together would undoubtedly bring chaos in the layout of the next months; Shizuo could feel it like prickles under his skin, rubbing along his veins in preformed adrenaline.

 

“Try to loosen up a little.” He said reassuringly as Izaya’s block was in clear focus, merely a few metres away. Shizuo moved one hand from the handles to Izaya’s shoulder, squeezing the flesh under the protection of the coat and feeling Izaya’s breath close and colliding with the skin on his palm. Izaya took up the suggestion of surrender and pressed his head hard on his arm as Shizuo could feel the tremor from his temple flush aligned to his elbow. “There’s no one here.”

 

“Just take me home, Shizuo-chan.” Izaya said instead with his voice high and wavering as if he was abruptly stopped from the scuffles of a convulsion. Shizuo made the sound of understanding, pushing a little faster as he kept his hand around the other’s shoulder for the support he hoped it carried. “After all, I plan on keeping you there for a while.”

 

Shizuo’s breath stilled in his lungs, an involuntary gasp echoed around the fume of cold from his lips and Shizuo walked faster, his footfalls landing on the pavement with a greater force than before and it wasn’t until they were both secured behind the closed iron doors of the elevator that he could breathe normally again, shoving his uneasiness aside with the push of his finger above the numbers on screen; only then when he could slid his hand on the curve of Izaya’s neck and around the earlobe.

 

The sound of the bell ringing hazed his focus while he tried to advance further in a straight line under the direct commands Izaya gave him to reach the door. It was harder when Izaya said _“Stop.”_ and the sound of keys ruffling scratched his eardrums but it was a pleasurable pain; a wakening to his adrenaline and his veins flowing under skin faster and tighten around his heart chords, flexing his fingers in the desire to touch, reach and _own_ and then Izaya opens the door widely, pushing himself rather bodily inside as he waited for Shizuo to follow. It was like a force of a magnet--Shizuo came inside, closing the door and locking it shut, his gaze fallen on the black wheelchair and darkened by the expanding tension as his voice broke into the shuddering growl of _‘Izaya’_ that felt like vibrations along his muscles--but Izaya rejected the collision, pursed his lips even under the fall of his hair, certain Shizuo can’t see the tremor of his held-back laugh and said under-breath; “Now, I’ve been stuck in this chair for hours!”

 

“So?” Izaya could hear the frustration burning in his tone similar to a lighter flickering the first spark of fire.

 

“So, Shizuo-chan, I want you..” lingered as he turned to watch Shizuo’s eyes firsthand and upfront, feeling his stare bruising inside his eyeballs with intention and worry alike. “To help me stretch.”

 

“Is this what you meant?” Shizuo sighed but capitulated to the under-covered plea as he zipped off his jacket to leave it hanging on a drawer’s handle and working on pulling up his sleeves. “Are you sure I won’t damage them more then they already are?”

 

“Don’t worry about that.” Izaya reassured with the wave of a hand as the other pulled down the hem of his coat. “The doctor said it’s a matter of months, besides, the clinic in here is more up-to-date.”

 

Shizuo made a sound in the back of his throat at the acknowledgement, walking in front of Izaya to catch his crimson gaze into his, held it still and unmoving as Izaya’s smirk lowered in a more relaxed curved line along the lips before he picked him up, encircling his sides as Izaya strained his arms in a strong flex to grip around his neck. Shizuo didn’t thought before where he should lay Izaya back onto; his eyes skimmed through the area of barely familiarity until his feet carried him to the couch and dropped Izaya gently on its cushions. “Why is your home so fucking clean?” he asked but didn’t made any move to shift his head around or gaze sideways as his attention was kept on the lower body and his hands sized around Izaya’s knee to squeeze affectionately as much as strongly. “Was that secretary of yours responsible for clean-ups too?”

 

“Namie-san would shot herself rather than _think_  about me when I’m not giving her chores.” Izaya laughed “I took care of it from Nakameguro, I assure you I was about to come back but the schedule got shortened by at least three years.”

 

Shizuo could only grunt; _three more years without Izaya would’ve been a nightmare._ Years without the unknown sensation of ecstasy to which he was addicted to the verge of exhilaration.

 

“Don’t be so deprived, you were the one dragging me back here.” Izaya said as he watched Shizuo’s mouth frown in concentration. A part of him wanted to make Shizuo lose his control again; to make him squeeze his bones until he would hear the crack and the pain would pulse inside him hours on end, feeling the anger the other contained dominating his body in and out but Izaya knew that would only be impossible now, and somewhere in the back of his mind and ache of bones; that made him delighted.

 

“I did _not_ drag you here.” Shizuo said, lifting Izaya’s leg over his shoulder so he could move to the other; jolting his hips closer to brush against his own. “You’re the one that’s tense though.” He remarked as he trailed his fingers over Izaya’s hipbone to held resistance on the soft flesh while he closed his palm around its frame. Izaya shivered and his lips parted dangerously close to emitting a high pitched sound which he sustained in the last second, closing his eyes to shut off the offering of his widen eyes and the desperation behind his stare.

 

 _“Shizuo-chan”_ Izaya shuddered and then: “You can’t expect me having the monstrous quality of relaxing when your grip could bent my leg in half.”

 

Shizuo retreated his hands as if they were burned, his eyes locked on Izaya’s mouth tight in seriousness. “I thought you said I shouldn’t worry about that?”

 

“Reality is different from assumptions.”

 

_“Izaya!”_

 

“But I do suppose you’ve at least started to loosen up a bit since I was gone.”

 

Izaya felt Shizuo’s breath on his face before he opened his eyes; Shizuo was closer, he could see every individual characteristic in his eyes, the mocha colors blend with green and the bleached blond with brown on edges in sign of negligence as the hair was left to grow back to his natural color. He saw Shizuo’s lashes dip over his eyes in shadows and his lips parted to the teasingly offering of a kiss. “You’re not _gone_.”

 

“Yeah, Shizuo-chan made sure I’ll be stuck with him longer.” he managed and his breath come back on his cheeks as it diverged to Shizuo’s own tight maxillary. 

 

“I won’t argue with that.” Shizuo whispered as he enclosed a hand around Izaya’s knee to keep him steady; as he leaned in and Izaya pushed up to meet the wetness of Shizuo’s lips on his. He held the heat in between their mouths, slightly creating an opening as he slid his tongue to part Izaya’s lips; Izaya gasped and closed his fists around his hair to tug harshly and bring him closer, making him move faster, rougher until Shizuo pressed his knee on Izaya’s crotch and tightened his hand around the other’s neck to align his head upwards and feel the tremor of pleasure and the pulse of their friction directly in his fingertips.

 

Shizuo could breathe Izaya under him and it smelled better and sweeter as he savoured the pleasure of homecoming. 

 


	18. Blame

* * *

 

“The whole Ikebukuro knows about it.” Kadota says as he pushes the beer on the table to swallow away the mouthful of bitterness. “People rumour it’s a victim of yours.”

 

Shizuo grimaces at how close it is to the reality unfold and he hides his frown above tighten lips with the edge of the milkshake cup covering the expansion of his chin. “It’s worse than that.” He says when the heat pleases his throat with the affliction of the innuendo of calmness. “Worse than anything.”

 

Kadota drew in a sharp breath. “It’s him, right?” he asked as Shizuo heard the clear commotion in the back of the van parked right beside them. He strengthen his back on the armchair, hearing his spine protest to the slow-dragged movement.

 

“Yes.” he said, hearing the words fell out as a shout followed by the confirmation more for himself than to offer explanation to the other; “It’s Izaya.” his name said so strongly it sounds like a punctuation to his sentence.

 

He realized further clarification was unnecessary; Kadota had a logistic way of thinking--short, to the point and almost every time correct--and Shizuo saw it in his eyes when he caught the steady gaze of the other for seconds before passing to the weight of the beer in front; Kadota knew--even before the rumours spread out in city and to his knowledge--that Shizuo carried alongside him the person he desperately wanted to chase out of Ikebukuro. That he was the one who brought him back as if having him taken away was a curse more than a blessing; and Shizuo felt slashed to the core, twisted in his self-conscious and tossed aside to gather around the fragments of their lives and packed them up again like a broken puzzle--wrong but satisfying.

 

“Where’s he now?” Kadota asked and Shizuo knew there was a span too large and too suffocating before the other cleared his throat to emit a balanced rush in his words.

 

He swallowed before responding, feeling the saccharine of the milk wash over the still lingering taste of Izaya’s bitterness on his tongue. He wanted to push it further back in his throat, experimenting the possibility of finding the trace of Izaya’s heat, Izaya’s bites on his lips so softly that’ll form small pinkish dots which would draw minimal attention but that burned alongside his skin with such intensity that Shizuo wanted to bring his fingertip flush on the scar and trail the fading teeth marks. He knew he had done worse to Izaya’s neck, Izaya’s jaw; Izaya’s lips would be bleeding-red as he’d stumble over to admire his hazed eyes under him. He felt Izaya’s absence like heat drained out from his system and when he took in a breath was to exhale and blur out the words on command as his thoughts flew back to the curve of uplift smile and sharp-turned lashes. “He has therapy now, I’ll pick him up at 3.”

 

Kadota huffed and leaned over the table in a thoughtful manner, intertwining his fingers and shifting his head so the beanie would fall slightly further over his hair. “How’s that working?”

 

“It’s quite steady.” He answered truthfully; “Izaya says the other doctor told him his recovery would be complete in a few months but I don’t see any progress.”

 

“Maybe because you don’t know how he was before?”

 

“ _Before_ he was _running_.” Shizuo growled in Kadota’s face as the other lifted his gaze to meet his in a stare between rationality and anger. “He was _running_ after I crushed his legs, I heard the _crack_ under my palms but he was running. When I threw him in the building walls, he fell like a fucking handkerchief. Years later I find out he actually _is_ a handkerchief and it’s all because of _me_.” He felt the anger in his veins pulsing with self-hatred and the desire to thwack over his own face was growing bigger and persistent until Kadota grabbed his already white-knuckled fist to rest it hardly on the table.

 

“It’s not you fault entirely and you know it.” he said rather sharply, in a clear attempt to ease Shizuo’s frustration and in normal terms it would’ve been impossible even from someone Shizuo considered trustworthy, but this was about _Izaya_ and his fist went slack even without his focus to ease it himself; Kadota’s fingers felt like iron on his wrist and when Shizuo looked down he saw the bangle like a flash in his memory. He smiled though, and laughed under his breath to hide his eyes in the cover of his hair; Izaya never takes it off unless it’s for a quick, warm shower.

 

“But it’s because of me that--”

 

“Enough of this!” a voice--feminine--resonated from somewhere behind Kadota and Shizuo would’ve pushed it aside thinking it’s just a passer-by talking over the phone or with a group of girls listening eagerly to her speech but Shizuo knew the tonality of the words and felt a pique of irritation as he saw Erika swung open the door and held out her hand to show one finger waving in a disapproving way. “I can’t believe you’re still putting people on blame for what it was, it’s in the past so therefore must be forgotten.”

 

“Erika, please--” as Shizuo said at the same time; “What I did can’t be forgiven!” with rage in his voice washing over his own self-pity.

 

“Ask Iza-Iza, I’m sure he’d say otherwise.” Erika said as she climbed off with her phone in hand though barely giving it any attention in addition to Shizuo’s murderous stare. “Or he’d blame himself, and where do we get?”

 

“ _We_ don’t get anywhere, and Izaya would never blame something on himself, that flea would throw the blame on everyone and deny his own self-conscience.”

 

“Shizuo, I know you love him--”

 

“ _Love--?!_ ”

 

“.. But pointing out the enemy and the paw in here is ridiculous.” Erika said seriously and even to Shizuo’s ears it sounded like a more realistic and down-to-earth conclusion among everything he had thought of himself; the fixing can never be made with the broken pieces still attached, and if that meant ignoring Izaya as a whole for who he was to accept what he _is_ , Shizuo was ready to take up the challenge. “All you need to do now is help him recover, stay with him and fuck him senseless!”

 

“Yeah, I— _what_?!” as Shizuo shouted and Kadota spilled the drink over his lap.

 

“I’d rather not think about it.”

 

“How can you _not_ think about it, Dotachin?!” she slapped on his shoulder blade and waved back as she returned to the comfort of leather sits and pushed her phone back on. Shizuo watched her face as it gave away the excitement in her widely bright eyes when he was brought back to reality by Kadota saying “I must change.” as he put down the share of his payment. “We’ll talk again.” while trying to hide away the black stain on his pants.

 

Shizuo barely sensed him raise, his eyes darkened by Izaya’s face and Izaya’s breathing over his neck and lips and he looked over to the too-loud clock as the digits showed 1 PM; sighed and banged his first on the table as his nostrils tried to catch the smell of _Izaya_ on his vest.

 

If Shizuo needed to blame himself fully for something, it would’ve been for falling in love with his own disease.


	19. Intensity

* * *

 

Shizuo had a bad day.

 

The morning itself was not the most promising; the heated mug of milk was spilled on the floor when his fingers lost the weight of the handle as his phone vibrated on maximum level in his pocket with a notification from work. Tom never intended to anger Shizuo, all the implications he had in his life were printed over with Shizuo’s fingertips on most occasions but even he felt like the flow of constant unasked questions burned on his nerves. He tried to push it away with the focus he’d exert for work, for keeping a stern face that surely looked more dangerous than before while smoking cigarettes and holding his gaze tightly close--piercing on every individual costumer. His senpai seemed even more distracted, shifting his eyes to catch Shizuo in peripheral and watching him move with a spark clear of worry in his irises and when two costumers refused payment one after the other, Shizuo reached the edge over frustration. He wanted to sent a text message to Celty, or call Kadota for a short span of seconds; more than anything he wanted to get to Izaya faster. In the two months they both stayed in Ikebukuro, Shizuo met the other either in his home or passing by to take him from the therapy, and Izaya would hold his hood over his head and push up a scarf around his neck in an attempt to pass through as unnoticed. Shizuo hated it because it meant no talking, he couldn’t do anything to get out the melodramatic hum the other’s voice carried, and he couldn’t see anything, any given feature hidden from his and others vision until Izaya unlocked the door of his apartment and they’d reach for each other with their hands or lips stretched in hours of touches and whispers and Shizuo would leave lightheaded and dizzy for his own colder and intolerable silence at home.

 

When Tom ordered a strawberry milkshake for him, Shizuo thought it would melt all the anger away, but the waiter was clearly new--the typical high-schooler in search for leftover money--and when he took the corner to lift the tray over to Shizuo, he tipped and lost his balance, his side crushed painfully on the sharp corner of the table and the mug shacked, twirled on the flat surface and spilled all over his uniform just as Shizuo raised a hand in order to pick it up and towards himself, impatient for the sweetness induced in him like drugs.

 

It took everything Tom had to keep him away from beating the shaken boy to the unbearable stage of broken bones and alarmed screaming, but Shizuo relaxed as Tom shouted words of reassurance in his ear. Izaya was waiting, deliberately sending messages from now and then to pass the time so Shizuo just flexed his hand around his phone, waving Tom off and exited the bistro with the determination of walking straight in Izaya’s arms to catch his smell on his lips.

 

“Izaya?” Shizuo asked for the fourth time as he rung the doorbell, pushing his fingertip harder on the switch as if the sound would increase, but his eardrums were blocked by the pressure and Shizuo didn’t knew anymore if he was ringing or if his finger was slowly twisting on the wall. _“Izaya?!”_

 

“A moment.” The voice was close to the door and Shizuo would’ve relaxed if the strain was not so noticeable. He shifted from a foot to another, ready to jump in any time when the door would be turned open and demand his worries to evaporate within the crimson gaze and the curve of his waist fitting to the edge of the armchair for support but then there was a _click_ of a sound, the doorknob slid and as ready as Shizuo thought he was, his breath knocked out from his lungs when he caught the raven glow of hair to his eye level. “Evening Shizuo-chan.” Izaya offered with great struggle in his chords. “How’s this day treating you?”

 

Shizuo choose easily to ignore the rhetorical question. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked instead and kept his indifference on his face, muscles relaxed even though his eyes and widely open mouth trade the ignorance for something else; closer to fondness. He was so close he could taste Izaya’s cologne on his tongue; their eyes met and remained locked as Izaya took one unsteady step forward, the hand holding resistance on the secured surface of the wall sliding along his side and raised higher. Shizuo already felt the heat in his skin, his cheek itching with more the proximity was enclosed, his eyes softened and darkened under his lashes. Izaya was smiling, if only barely, to show that he's standing with what was more a show-off than a struggle but his knees trembled and bent forward, his hand curled in the air and his smirk was gone to leave a line of fear written on his lips as he drew out a short gasp and Shizuo’s eyes widen, his heart hammering because Izaya was _falling_. He moved on pure instinct, catching Izaya in his arms as the other shifted to get a new balance. Shizuo groaned, tightening his pressure above his shoulder blades and when he stepped in was to grip at Izaya’s waist and pull him upwards, guiding his legs to close around himself and forcefully locked the door behind.

 

“Walking.” Izaya said after a while as Shizuo moved to the couch. His voice was small and whisper-soft even from Shizuo’s earshot; “It’s harder than expected.”

 

“What were you thinking?” Shizuo asks as he leaned with his knee on the cushions and dropped Izaya gently.

 

“I wanted to surprise you, of course Shizuo-chan. Besides, I can walk now, the only problem is that I can’t make it perfectly from the couch to the door.” He said but his muscles were tense and his arms still pressed around Shizuo’s neck with a force that’ll leave red trail marks along his skin.

 

“That’s hardly the biggest problem.” Shizuo said and tried to loose Izaya’s grip but the other curled his fingers, his nails digging in the skin on his upper back and Shizuo groaned and tipped forward in Izaya’s space as the other blinked his eyes to look into Shizuo’s own.

 

“Shizuo-chan.” Izaya said and sounded like honey poured over an overheating tea; “What would I do without you?” as his legs flexed and his hips bucked to bring Shizuo closer.

 

“ _That_ would be a disaster I suppose” Shizuo said but his words were lost to his ears when the breathing of the other collided with his own mouth and invited his lips to part and his eyes to lose their usual focus as they caught only the shape of a smirk in his full-vision.

 

“What a pity.” His hand trailed the curves of his vest before leaving Shizuo’s body; he pushed himself after it as if he had lost the only heat source. “Does that mean I’m stuck with you forever? That’ll be a catastrophe, don’t you think?” Izaya mumbled and moved his hands to close around the hem and the giveaway of his pants belt, feeling Shizuo’s stare following like a magnet connected to the strings of his bracelet.

 

Shizuo touched before responding, his hands moved hesitantly under Izaya’s and hovered over his hipbone. He huffed a breath, ducking forward so his hair could block away any lingering frustration. “I don’t see it like that.”

 

“Really?” as Izaya gripped his hand into his own to lower it closer, sizing it in his hold until his knuckles turned white and Shizuo felt his tendons froze and the heat in his veins pulsed with the desire to follow the guidance, “Then what do you see in _this_?” and Izaya unbuckled the belt with the other hand as he brushed Shizuo’s palm with his thumb; Shizuo could clearly see the waistband under his own fingers.

 

“I told you.” He says when Izaya’s hold tightens as if the other didn’t expected a reply at all. “I’m infatuated with you.” and Izaya groaned under him, his hold loosened and Shizuo took the lust in his craving for granted over his own self-consciousness. “And I think you’re too.” When Shizuo swept his way under the protection of clothing, Izaya shuddered, his grip tightly shifting to Shizuo’s vest as his hips softly rocked forward to catch the print of Shizuo’s fingertips on himself and Shizuo wondered if this wasn’t what Izaya always wanted, if the swing of the knife that left a bruising never-fading mark on his chest was the clear response to a rejection laid before them with no bounds of explanation.

 

Izaya drops his grip at once, capitulating to the feeling of Shizuo’s fingers across his waistband and over his skin downwards from his hipbone and Shizuo sighs the sound of resignation and tips his head to the crock of his neck as his shoulders sag to lift his arm over to Izaya’s head, bracing his cheek and leaning in to capture his lips on his own. The kiss is heated as much as it's sudden, the force of their impact left Izaya quaver under his hold as Shizuo pushed and licked to memorize the shape of his mouth and to taste the bitterness while Izaya was hazed by the token of addiction with which Shizuo drugged him; long and slow and rough, his lips burning and his heart aching. Izaya jerks at the friction, feeling the intensity that courses through his skin like the building sharp of arousal, his frame shaking and trembling as Shizuo draws his hand over Izaya; the deep pleasurable sensation was so perfect Shizuo’s palm curled instinctively to press flush against his skin, pulling up and down slowly and clenching his teeth in between their kisses.

 

Shizuo moves at once, the first shudder of breath like a direct order as he swings his arm with a quicker pace and fall in a rhythm with Izaya’s breathing, the spasms of his gasps breaking under him and Izaya tried to get his coherency in control and form any line, any meaningful sentence but his mind is blown and dizzy, his gaze shifting to Shizuo’s mouth and with the forceful drag _up_ , longer and more squeezing, Izaya pressed his forehead on his and searched desperately for the wetness of his mouth. Shizuo is clumsy, his friction giving way to an incomprehensible speed that leaves Izaya moaning in lose of breath and rationality. To Shizuo, Izaya is elegant, his jaw cleared and the outlines contoured with delicacy that twisted with every gulp he swallowed, every strain of his throat to voice out a moan as Shizuo pushes Izaya on an edge he’s too disorientated to reach.

 

 _“Shizuo”_ Izaya moaned, his lips broking the direct contact with the other as his head thumped on the couch behind, his spine arched up to meet Shizuo’s own rhythm in breathing, his legs trembled, knots forcefully formed under his knees, on every fiber of his muscles but Izaya ignored the pain, tightening his arms around his neck and into the fall of his hair, twisting the locks around in his fists and when he whimpered was to voice the pleasure and arousal surged deep inside him instead of the high-burning soreness in his bones. Shizuo couldn’t keep his eyes off; he looked and stared over the curve of his lips, the way his arms would shiver and his arousal would strike deeply over his conscience with every pull whenever he quickened his stroke. Izaya felt his orgasm impaled higher, too strongly for him to bear as Shizuo shifted his fingers over his head, messing the precum and pushing it inside while his strokes driven on the verge of frantic pull ups; he felt the desperate need for air, his chest contracting with the unyielding twinge in his lungs. _“Shizu--”_ and Izaya twitched, his throat released a shout of bliss and Shizuo groaned as the stickiness covered his fingers; he tipped over the cushions, fell over him and pushed his forehead to the heat of Izaya as he nuzzled lazily in his raven hair, smelling the promise of pleasure and the heat of exhaustion.

 

“I--” Izaya chokes when he calmed his breathing; when Shizuo sized a hand to the curve of his head and rubbed the hairs to the scalp. “I think I… am too” Izaya said in the end, an answer--a confirmation--not necessarily needed to be voiced to Shizuo’s teasing but cleaned of every mockery and if Shizuo thought his breath was already uneven, at the sound of words pronounced with gentleness and truthfulness, his heart skipped the bit and stopped to warm itself with the calefaction of reality.


	20. Menace

* * *

 

“It’s scary how little it changed. The only oddity is you not trying to kill me.” Izaya managed through his hoarse breath as he forced his elbows to steady on the leather behind and his legs spread wider leaving one foot to fall shamelessly on the floor. “Are you sure you’re the same Shizuo-chan I know? It’s even stranger how quiet it is these days, it gets boring even. Maybe after I’m fully healed we could fight again, huh?”

 

Shizuo groaned and Izaya felt the vibration radiating in his blood. “Can you stop talking about the damn city for a moment?”

 

“I love Ikebukuro as much as I love humans. It’s an enduring fact.”

 

“Can’t you _endure_ it while I suck you off?” His grip was taut on his waist and Izaya felt the fingers tremble with the frustration he worked to achieve. Shizuo wasn’t angry though; his body quivered with irritation but his mouth was sack in a small smirk and his eyes were warm and colorful, leaving him breathless for a second when Shizuo moistened his lips.

 

“That’s tempting.” Izaya said even as his self-concentration gave way to a hazy processing. “But I’m afraid your tongue is not strong enough; I can hardly feel myself getting wet.”

 

Shizuo hummed, tracing a hand along his skin to reach and widely disperse the stickiness over the head to hunch Izaya’s muscles further into his touch. “We’ll see about that.” He says before swerving his head and tighten around the flesh, biting roughly on the base of his cock as he swirled his tongue to push harshly on the wound and drag up the intensity of his hold to imprint the curve of Izaya’s veins in his own mouth.

 

 _“Ah”_ Izaya gasps and throws his head back to emit the sound to the ceiling; his hands found the stability in enclosing around Shizuo’s hair, tugging and tensing at the bleached hair lines as he tried to give rhythm himself, steering Shizuo’s head to bounce on his skin. His legs twitched and knotted with the desire to push upwards and rock hard into the expanse of Shizuo’s mouth, all the restrain he built crumpled as Shizuo shifted his hand to grip an unbreakable strength along his hipbone and Izaya shuddered, feeling every pulse of his fingers working over the flush of his skin. His head arched to draw out another quiver from the back of his throat and Shizuo purrs over him with the oscillation that shakes his core and swallowed low in his own abdomen, trembling along his spine. Shizuo moved faster right away, angling his head for a better position and dragging his tongue upwards in a long and agonizing force that Izaya feels thumping all the way to his lungs, squeezing the air out.

 

“Oh _fuck_ , Shizuo.” Shizuo lowers by an inch to hum around the base, heating the reddening skin and leaving a trail clear, cursing the heat in Izaya’s system as he works harder and faster on the movement with his hands, over-sizing the precum inside. Izaya trembles with the tremor, feeling himself going still under Shizuo’s strength as he breathes to impenitently hide the moans of pleasure for the other. He feels the heat flutter in his stomach, runs to coldness in his blood as his arousal extends to the point when he isn’t sure he’s able to hold it in for a submission of immeasurable indulgence. “Don’t stop.” he says; pleads as Shizuo moves with such speed he can’t determine the difference of their muscles tangled in the friction, as Izaya feels his legs going sore with the pain of holding them up and curled around Shizuo’s shoulders. He rocks his hips, digging his heels in Shizuo’s back to gain some impossible support and between the full-throat moans there’s hardly any way the screeches of agony could be identified in the heat around them and Izaya feels himself shuddering from head to toe, his spine arches in a way to meet Shizuo’s warmth on his own and then he spasms and Shizuo hums appreciation as the orgasm hits him firsthand.

 

By the time Shizuo licks away any remaining stickiness, Izaya’s breathing leveled to normal, his eyes focused on the deified spot on the tip of Shizuo’s hair and Shizuo shifts to get closer and drops his head on the crock of his neck as he feels his lashes flutter on his skin. Shizuo’s breath is burning on his shoulder. “How are your legs?”

 

Izaya surpassed the yarn of comfort at Shizuo’s murmur radiating on his skin. “They’re obviously a lost cause.” he says while trimming his fingers through his hair to catch teasingly at the scalp and scratch his nails to force eagerly the head closer and pressed on his curves. “Really Shizuo-chan, if you continue like that I won’t be able to walk at all.”

 

Shizuo sniffed a laugh throughout his nose as he surrendered to his touch and held tightly around his waist, the strength bruising his skin in between his ribs to a blushing red but Izaya wasn’t going to voice any complain; he ducked instead, reaching with one hand for Shizuo’s arm to enclose around and squeeze absently at the strain of his muscle until Shizuo’s grip gave way to an affectionate relation. “Is this you feeling remorse?”

 

“This is me feeling the need for a shower and new clothes Shizuo-chan, but close enough.”

 

Shizuo groaned, forced to stillness by his body itself as he inhaled the bitter aroma in the other’s hair but he slid and got on feet faster than Izaya anticipated, leaving him wheezing and cold. “’Kay” Shizuo says and Izaya grips back his hand by the wrist to tug gently downwards so he could kiss along the other’s hair closer to his temple. In response, Shizuo moved his head to catch the corner of his lips as fast as they were retreating and Izaya waggled his eyelids to close and fit the calmness pulsing throughout himself. “Stay here.”

 

“Right when I thought I could sneak out and run for my life’s freedom.” Izaya sighs when Shizuo disappears around the corner of the hall, the response of _“Stop meddle.”_ echoed as an offering of self-irritation and Izaya sucks in a breath to compose his laughter. It takes longer for Shizuo to came back, the usual seconds widen to minutes and Izaya was growing impatient; worried over the absurdity that Shizuo found _it_  so he called out with a shaky voice; “Shizuo?”

 

Shizuo turns, faster and barely touching the ground with his footfalls--strong but unsteady at the same time and Izaya noticed the piece of paper in his hand, the sheet twisted in his imperishable clasp. “Izaya, what’s this?”

 

Izaya knew the contents of the note; the messily written words that blended in clear threats which cut acidulous taste in the back of his tongue while reading and re-reading it to assimilate every phrase. He knew it, in and out, and only picturing Shizuo skimming over the words of _‘We’ll cut your guts, loose’_ or _‘Should’ve stayed with the dead’_ , _‘We’ll slash your neck open while you sleep’_ and _‘We’ll beat you until you fucking scream_ ’ sent a blood-curling shiver on his spine as he tried to push himself bodily from the couch and towards Shizuo to snatch the suggestion of a death threat from his grasp and throw out the lie of _just games._

 

If it were someone else besides Shizuo, that might’ve worked, but the other knew the best how to dissect his thoughts and words into million pieces and put them together in the right order, so Izaya could just shift his hand and leave it sliding on the cushions as he stared wide-eyed at the grip tightening with every given second. “Who the _fuck_ wrote this, Izaya?”

 

“I guess you can trace the bigger picture yourself.” he said instead of offering the name that curled his tongue to bitterness and pulsed his blood into chilling.

 

Shizuo looked then at him and Izaya saw the worry in his eyes; the complete devastation that crumbled into the giveaway of his vision and rigidify his chords to break out only the whimpers of the sounds. “Yakuza?” Shizuo asks and the name knocks out the air in him with fathomless force; his arms strained in fists, his legs pulsed with the pain of knotted muscles and soreness and Izaya knew the exertion of it brought fresh lines of tears in the corners of his eyes, glued to the eyelashes and protected by the shadows of his hair but Shizuo shifted to get to him from across the hallway, sized one reassuring hand and ruffled his hair in gentle strokes and Izaya knew without clarification that he saw too much already.

 

When he moves is to nod and lean to catch the warmth of a body ready to give it all, and the thought of it builds the self-inflicted sickness like a steel knife through his windpipe.


	21. Anxiety

* * *

 

Izaya liked to play with fire.

 

If there was one thing Shizuo could never argue with anyone on the matter, it would be just that; Izaya loved it, the feeling of adrenaline pulsing in him faster than arousal and pushed him all those years back to trace the harsh lines of his own existence in means of irritation and the barely touch of a fist blown in his direction. Shizuo also couldn’t ignore his own excitement--maybe it was the escape route in releasing his anger and built up frustration over the day, maybe it was to way Izaya laughed and spilled the venom through his lips in a poisonous greeting, maybe it was Izaya himself. He never figured it out, and yet the chases ended with the acknowledgement of relief as the anger blended away throughout his sweat and carved through his teeth in shapes of curses and one name hunting over the tip of his tongue. Izaya never backed away, he never showed defeat or any sign of retreat, always jumping head-first into the danger and cutting his way out like smashing through a glass wall--it seemed easy, with the care and gentleness he put in the act but left him wounded and pierced until the last shard cut inside his skin and left him broken. If Shizuo didn’t knew better, he’d say Izaya was always like this--a frail and innocent man holding his head higher in hope of notice or self-encouragement; with a shattered reality in an innuendo of stability--but Shizuo knew now to read Izaya in and out, knew the one before was nothing like the one _now_ as much as Shizuo couldn’t recognise himself anymore too. And yet under it all, Izaya never chased to flirt with the idea of peril, wore the jeopardy on his sleeve and waved it to anything and anyone without even the smallest hint of remorse.

 

It made Shizuo sick before, thinking Izaya was a psychopath and sadistic addict that asked for death himself, gazing at the curves of his body as he dodged and the outline of his jaw as he straightened to smile in his full-vision, felt the knot in his heart telling him to reach out and _own_ that translated to his muscles as the desire of punching. He thought Izaya would bring the destruction to his beloved city and its occupants but now he wasn’t sick, nor angry or idle but overwhelmed by worry and _scared_. Shizuo was scared because Izaya was too resistant to draw the border between safety and torture and he was stepping right into the hole. _“Izaya.. “_ he said, a break of sound that carried deep emphasis and the weight of his concern and Izaya trembled, sighing closer to a sob as he ducked his head so the raven hair lines could fall over his face and hide it in the shadows, a line of dark covered his eyes entirely.

 

“I’ll kill them.” Was all he said, a confirmation deep embed in his bones and run cold around his knuckles. Shizuo knew Izaya would reject the idea, would probably push away any sort of help but he gripped tighter around Izaya’s shoulder, feeling the tremor under his hold and the unevenness of the breath smoked on his arm so the words held more meaning than ever before, shaped in truth, not illusions _. “I’ll kill them.”_

 

“You know you can’t.” Izaya says once he lifts his head to fall unceremoniously on his elbow, the trails of tears dissolved in his eyes but the mouth lined with the suggestion of a trembling lip. “They’re _yakuza_.” He draws his hand out, his fingertips brushing over Shizuo’s cheek in a slow stroke and his eyes bored a crimson light into his own messily brown ones; he gulped twice before smiling “They use guns and as monstrous as you are, I’m afraid gun wounds work the same for everyone.”

 

“You don’t know that.” Shizuo says as he frowns and tilts slightly to break the contact; “ _I_ don’t know that, but after all I’ve been through, guns are just fucking flies, Izaya.”

 

“They aren’t flies to me.” he wailed and Shizuo pushed his cheek in the opened palm again at the sound, moving closer if only by an inch to catch the glimmer in Izaya’s eyes and the shake in his voice. “That’s nothing, really. I used to receive threats all the time, you should know.”

 

 _“Don’t.”_  he said and then: “This isn’t one that could be overlooked, they just said they’re gonna _torture_ you.”

 

“We all know my enemies have weird kinks, there’s no need to shame on them. And as much as it sounds heart whelming, I can’t make you my personal bodyguard.”

 

“I’d quit my job if it means protecting you.”

 

“You quit your job, you’ll be starving and a forever unemployed. I won’t pay you and your life would be more monotone than it is now; listen to me when I say I can _handle it_.”

 

Shizuo felt irritation creeping in his blood. “They plan to _kill_ you.”, the word contoured with additional pain that crushed his lungs and broke his chords. “You can’t expect me to stand on standby and watch.”

 

“One thing is certain though” Izaya purrs as he pushes both hands on the couch to arch his spine and look over Shizuo to an empty bare distraction in his back. “If they’re so impatient to kill me, I can’t image how much they’ve celebrated after my supposed death.”, his voice as clear as the unfused tea; “Did you?” he asks to shift the conversation in a twisted turn the way he knew best, with the taut of anticipation on his tongue. “Did you honour my disappearance as a holy gift?” even though Shizuo could taste the exaggeration himself.

 

“You know very well that’s not true.” he murmured and watched the other’s lashes dip at the resonance and leaned his head forward towards him; Shizuo knows it’s a half-hidden seduction to ease his thoughts and conclude in him exchanging concentration on the shift of his lips instead of the black characters on a messily crumbled and overly-read paper.

 

“I guess so.“ he whispers and his legs flex under him with the tremor of pain paralyzing his muscles and strained vessels sharp on his forehead; Shizuo doesn’t see it, the hair covers it all and the wheeze of hurt is gone before he could push his elbows to the leather back of the couch and catch Shizuo from behind the wall of cushions in between. “Why would you be here, otherwise?”

 

When Shizuo touches his lips with his own, the stream inside him gives way to a drugged attraction that smacks away the concerns for the feeling of warmth as his pulse increased and Shizuo wonders for the first time how healthy was all of it--how one wrong step could swing them both over the edge.


	22. Fright

* * *

 

“Be careful.” Shizuo says over the phone muffled by what it could’ve been the position of the cellular, caught in the crock of his shoulder to fit it on his ear as the sound of a lightened cigarette flickered in the receiver. “You can’t walk normally just yet, why don’t you let me take it?”

 

“Because I can’t heal if I don’t walk. I’ll take them, besides Russian Sushi is close to my place.” he offered even though they both knew the distance was bigger than any other route he had taken in months. “So you stand you awful choice of inari?”

 

Shizuo grunts on the other end and shifts his hand to cup around the weight of his phone and speak directly in his eardrum; “Its not _awful_ , it’s sweet.”

 

“So awful.”

 

“Better than your shady tuna.” he says as he clicks his tongue to give way to irritation that blends slowly into mirth.

 

Izaya gasps as if the retort took him by surprise and wounded deep inside his heart. “Tuna is the _best_. You really should evaluate the value of sushi, Shizuo-chan.”

 

“Shut up.” he says and; “Remind me why we’re doing this?”

 

“It’s merely a dinner to show my gratitude.” Izaya spills the words clearly annoyed and strips his coat over the shoulders. “Try and say I’m not good-natured now, hmm?” Izaya hums.

 

“You have exceptions I suppose, but you’re still a pain in the ass.”

 

“How lovely.” Izaya taunts as he skips over the threshold.

 

Shizuo just groans, inhaling deeply the amount of nicotine in his lungs before talking over the smoke blown from his mouth. “Just don’t push it.” he says and Izaya’s heart thumps over the worrisome tonality. He nods, gives a faint _alright_ before ending the call and secured the phone in the safety of his pocket.

 

He can walk--not straight nor coherent--but his footfalls land securely on the pavement and his knees push on his muscles to shift his weight from one leg to another and the pain is barely there, overtaken by the concentration he gives in _not falling._ He barely misses the stares, his head cast down to the extent of his boots instead of the usual way he’d raise it high above the crowd and follow whomever pickles his interest, but he feels them; any individual pair of eyes burn in his back and force him to hunch his shoulders forward and shake his head to let the hair shadow the giveaway of his face. It’s the cheery blossoms that make him look upwards again, the smell of the flowers capturing his nostrils in what tastes like a forgotten and undeserved familiarity and he felt as if walking on the quiet and bistros-filled streets of Nakameguro; tasted the sweetness of the peace and the bitterness of singularity until he feels warmth in his back and relaxes with the illusion of Shizuo following him.

 

He gets to the restaurant faster than expected, catching the frantic waving Simon made in front from peripheral vision as he almost passed by it. “Simon” he says and lifts his hand to catch the other’s attention. Simon stops, fliers angled above his head and mouth sack with confusion. He sees his expression darken, his mouth shifts into unusual grimace but he’s smiling again right away, talking loudly to reach Izaya’s ears over the span of people crossing undisturbed in between.

 

“Izaya! See you good; back is good. Homecomings feel good with sushi!”

 

“Yes, that’s what I’m told. Even though Shizuo-chan’s tastes are loathsome.” he says as he gets through with difficulty and the faintest strain in his bones.

 

“Shizuo?” Simon asks and his face twists to a shadowy color again, his eyes piercing Izaya in a steady glare. “You still try to torment the city?”

 

“Shizuo-chan and I come to good terms this months, don’t worry. Better than you might think of; besides I’m not in my greatest shape.”

 

Simon sizes his body from the line of his lashes to the tip of his toes, straightens and narrows his eyebrows before radiating with a heart-chilling but true smile. “Pain cured with sushi! Eat sushi, happy sushi! I bring to you!” and Izaya finds a good amount of five minutes to stretch under the table and relax the thrumming in his bones.

 

Going back is easier, the streets are incorporated by the nightfall, people hardly observe the fur trimmed coat in the dark and any stumble over his own feet is overlooked as the ones around hold their gazes glued to a loved one, arms intertwined and laughter coloring their conversions or to the screen of their phones as they loose the grip of attention to the receiver of their texts or the headlined news and Izaya feels like himself again, smiling razor-sharply and balancing the bags of freshly bought sushi on his sides; his block is in clear vision, his legs eased the pain and the barely-there knots are felt like spider bites on his skin but there’s something wrong--a shadow where it shouldn’t be, a wheeze of wind blown in the stilled air and Izaya stops, framed by the corners of a darkened alley. There’s an echo of a sound, quick and sharp like a mocking laugh an when Izaya moves further there’s the bang of a gunshot, the air convulses to stillness in his eardrums and the projectile of the bullet strikes forcefully on the wall behind. He turns, sees the hole graved by the remains in the aftermath of the lighting-struck shot and when he steps back is to catch his arm and bruise his elbow on the concrete, shifts his feet to arch in the briefing of ascendancy but he’s pushed roughly against the wall, a hand gripped on his arm with unbreakable strength and when he flutters his eyes is to stare back to a discomfited grin and the barrel of the gun pointed to his forehead.

 

“Orihara Izaya.” the man says and his breath smells of smoke and beer and the musky scent of sweat. “A pretty face like yours deserves a bullet hole through the eye, don’t you think?”

 

Izaya tries to squirm out of his clutch, desperately searches for a blocking blow or a distraction that’ll divert the man’s attention from himself, but his vision is blocked by the contour of the other’s coat and the emptiness of the barrel and his words are lost somewhere in the back of his mind as he starts to shake and close his eyes tightly to try and at least obstruct the reality. He feels the gun pressed to his cheek, a knee spreads his legs wider as the chilling heat of the other marches with his own, he could taste the intoxicating breath as the other speaks over him. “You asshole know how much they’ll pay me?!” one hand slides roughly to dig under the shape of his clavicle. “How much does yo head worth?! I’ll rip it; I’ll rip that fucking grin off your face!”

 

Izaya couldn’t breathe anymore, the threats were lost sounds to his ears and he could only feel the coldness on his cheek, the bruising mark that shifted from the shoulder lower to his waist and the knee pressing harder and forcing the legs wider until the man was fully in between, his lips barely touching his nose as he spoke and Izaya couldn’t even shake his head to hide the exposure of skin with his hair. The man screamed, gripped tighter to course a brutal pain in his ribs that could make him yell but the click of the gun knocked the air out, hearing the safety being switched and Izaya felt tears in the eyes, sobbed from the back of his throat when he saw the suggestion of a shadow, a bleached blond moving pass him and he nearly shouted, the name craved already on his tongue before the weight of the gun disappeared, his legs bounced with the force of someone falling and knocking him to the ground and Izaya allowed the scream to finally ease his lungs as he smacked the pavement. He anticipated a dull ache, an itch of pain as the resonance of a shot dissolved in his unconsciousness, but he was still awake, the pain in his muscles a clear giveaway and he could hear--if only faintly--the blows and the crack of bones from the side. He tried to make a ball of himself, pressed his hands flush on his ears to block the sounds away; he was convulsing and he knew it, the spasms more violent and disjointed than ever, memories flashed before his eyes and the trail of nightmares was endless, flashing unstoppable in his brain.

 

He can’t define how long he cried, laying in a messy, untangled combo of limbs, but the hand on his head breaks him, he shifts and screams, kicks his legs and arms and shakes his head in a distraction of madness. He can’t see and it makes him hyper to everything around himself; his name is shouted, his hands are caught in a firm grip and he feels his heart bursting out from the protection of his ribcage, his muscles protest painfully at every move that leaves him gasping for air as the voice envelops his hearing and muses the blood in his veins to thump regularly and even.

 

 _“Izaya”_ he says, softer and warm around the edges, every vowel longed by the intake of a breath and Izaya feels his hand on his cheek, the stroke as gentle as it is hesitant and when he opens his eyes, the barrel of a gun and the threatening black eyes are commuted with the blinding concern and the twist of parted lips and slightly narrowed eyebrows.

 

 _“Shizuo-chan…”_ Izaya sighs, tries to lift his arm but his muscle is strained and the bones ache in remonstrance, his voice breaking over the name to be released as barely a whisper.

 

“Hold on.” Shizuo says and the brush of his arms around his legs and back is undetectable. “It’s okay now.” Shizuo hums in his ear as he walks for the block further up the street. “You’re okay” and Izaya holds the hem of his vest to his face as the tears stain the uniform, as Shizuo glides his lips over his hair and squeezes tightly the promise of protection with his arms closed around Izaya.

 

He remembers the dinner only after Shizuo indulges him to take a bath--warm and refreshing--and he relaxes on the couch with his head and body fully flushed to the heat as Shizuo held him unyielding in his arms, but if it meant Shizuo’s warmth instead of the draining paleness from the bullet hole through his temple, Izaya was grateful for the change. 


	23. Audacity

* * *

 

Shizuo is pissed.

 

He knows he messed up; the force he averted to the shooter was impossibly rough and brutal, he heard the bones crack and crush under his fists, the blows were continuous and harsher with every contact. He saw the redness in the boy’s cheeks gave way to a pale complex, blood stained and dripping from his lips; a bended arm in half from the elbow to wrist to urge the gun out from his grasp and rolling on the cold pavement. He didn’t bothered checking for pulse--the paleness and complete stillness and the ragged breathing talked against any possibility of survival. He was too blinded by the scenery of Izaya pulled up against the wall with a gun at his forehead and a drunk man shouting in his face, too close for his liking so the instinct spoke before rationality and twisted the man’s maxillary with the back of his knuckles. He should’ve stopped; Izaya’s crying reached his ears at one undefined point, but it all pushed him to throw the blows harder with a hunger unsatisfied for breaking the violence within.

 

He knew when he’d try to calm him, Izaya would be a mess; a broken tool beyond repair as he used to say, and still he felt no remorse; he had not turned around to see the pool of blood and deformed limbs in his back but the sensation was still tattooed on his skin and on the rhythm of his pulse. He felt the vibration of agony radiating through himself and it took great concentration not to fist around Izaya’s arms or legs more than necessary. He stuck around the night, barely shutting his eyes as he felt Izaya’s chest raising on his side in an undisturbed sleep, but when he left was with half-restrain which the other dismissed saying he needs some time alone and Shizuo just nodded, leaned in for a briefly kiss on the corners of his lips and walked straight for the alley. His heart hammered at the thought of what’s there to be found; he wasn’t sorry--the man tried to kill Izaya and he swore he’d kill anyone that so much as threats the frail informant in front of him--but he is worried for the further-up implications of the act, for how Izaya would look at him after it, if he’d ever have the courage to stand in the same room now that Shizuo became the monster he’d always viewed him as.

 

The shadows were enveloping the emptiness and the small alley was as shady as the terrible night before; he could track the trail he run onto as the scent of Izaya exploded in his nostrils and struck his eyeballs like the flow of blood bubbling being his head. He could hear voices, distant and male and Shizuo straightened, stopped right at the corner that lead to the gruesome body surely still laying as still on cold ground and stained with dried blood. There can’t be reporters already he thought and it was true, as much as the news spread in Ikebukuro faster than heated bread and freshly cooked sushi. The men were arguing, the raising and falling of their tonalities a clear display of frustration and fear combined and Shizuo had a firm idea of who they were, his chest inhaling a good measure of air to ease the lingering smoke in his lungs and scowled, his fists hidden in the uniform’s pockets and crumbled to drew blood.

 

“… _fuck_ dude?! We can’t leave him _here_.”

 

“What do you suggest, the boss would ask about it. I don’t wanna be in a city at war.”

 

“We should just get in his house and kill him!”

 

“You ain’t killing anybody.” Shizuo groaned and at the sound of his voice, the two turned to gawp in his direction and hold slippery on their backs to what Shizuo imagined were knifes or guns either. It only made him smile broader. “What’re you still doing here, hah?”

 

“You.” The bigger one said and took a further step towards him, his eyes shifted for a second to the body before widening with recognition. “You killed him! The fucking monster _killed_ him.”

 

“I could kill you too right now if you don’t hold your tongue.” Shizuo said, delivered as a direct threat while his feet moved himself across the span of empty space from between, hearing his footfalls like echo in a glassy room. “And if you touch Izaya again, I’ll tear you to pieces.”

 

The two dilated their pupils only to stare blankly and dark-eyed to Shizuo’s shift of mouth and darkened frown and when Shizuo opened his mouth to demand complete attention, the smaller one gasped and waved his arms frantically in front of his face “Woah man calm down. We didn’t, this dead fella was the one--”

 

“I know.” Shizuo says and kicks the corpse’s arm with the strength of his boot pressed in by the force of his foot and the ache in his muscles. “And you’d be dead too if you don’t bolt right now.” he says and raised his hand to curl his fingers in arching articulations to offer the premonition of gripping the hem and threw them across the crack of the walls. The yakuza boys wheezed a sound of breath, widen their eyes and switched their hands off their weapons to grip at the hems of their shirts and break into a clumsy runaway--cursing and shouting; the other man laid still and unmoving, breathless. With only one glare he could trace the fracture of his bones on his own skin like a reminder of the night.

 

It took three days for Izaya to sent back a text message. He regained any evasive nervousness he had after the acknowledgement of a crime bigger than anything he ever did or he would’ve thought of committing, but he’s calmer with the quieter approach of the passing days, pleasantly observing the sky-high bare branches painted with the suggestion of buds on the edges that granted the scent of springtime. Shizuo never really minded the change of seasons; he refused wearing anything else besides his bartender uniform and occasionally a warmer jacket in winter--but the shift of coldness to the heat of spring sun and the smell of newly blossoms drove his mind to the school days when he’d chase over a black coat in the hallways and the barely-there smell of cherries when he saw Izaya again by the river. He closes his eyes to angle against the bench and spread wider his legs, feeling the sleep creeping over him as he relaxes in the park closer to his last work location when his phone vibrates in his pocket so violently Shizuo felt it like grenades blowing off under his skin. He had the new habit of jumping at the smallest sounds since that night shifted to a still-strong memory.

When he swiped open his phone, he saw the line written in black-curved characters _How long do you plan on hiding?_  sent as mockery under the clear overwrought. It takes him little to 10 seconds to fill in the reply of _I’m coming now_ as he stands on his feet to cross the streets over to Izaya; the humming of his phone ignored in the clench of his hand.

 

When he gets in front of the door, Izaya opens before he had time to extend his hand for the doorbell or to tap against the wooden surface.

 

“Shizuo-chan, I suggest you check your messages before storming into my house like a lunatic.” Izaya says sharply but moves to allow space for Shizuo to step over and shrug his shoulders to twitch his wrist and turn on his phone--seven missed calls and over twenty messages. He grunts as he looks in Izaya’s eyes for the first time in days that felt like endless torment.

 

“What was it?” he asks innocently while advancing for the better comfort of the couch. “I needed to know if you’re alright, after three whole days. At least check if you’re still breathing.”

 

“Any dark outcomes are gone from my plans now that I can recover.” Izaya says unequivocally as he takes over the chair to his desk; his silhouette blended with the reflection of himself in the window-glass. “And I wanted to tell you to stop by Russian Sushi and buy the food. Again.”

 

Shizuo sighed as the simple sentence stained his rationality with his own crime. “You know, I should always watch over you now.” he realizes instead and voiced his belief with no shadow of doubt; “And I can’t even see you after… it’s _frustrating_.”

 

“If it’s that what you think maybe you should move in here.”

 

“Yeah, that’ll be actually a go--” he stops as the seriousness of his tone settled in the meanings behind the display of words thrown like barrels in the water. “Izaya? Did you just…”

 

“I planned to suggest it over the dinner but some drunk gun-possessor destroyed the beauty of it.” Izaya sighed but turned to catch the full focus on Shizuo’s face. “What do you say?”

 

Shizuo didn’t knew if the loss of words was something normal or if his mind shut off completely as he stared into Izaya’s eyes, the crimson brighter than any other encounter and at his lips, parted and soft that offered a seduction not even intended, so Shizuo slides slowly from the couch, making the show of grabbing resistance on the cushions behind and knocking with his side on the coffee table; his moves slow, zombie-like but a smile is embroidered on his lips and he thought that alone was enough for Izaya to tilt his head further in anticipation. Shizuo’s hand caresses his cheek before cupping it firmly to feel the pressure of pulse on his palm; the realization and confirmation of _still living_ as he guides his hand to the lower half of his neck. Izaya shudders under the hold of his fingertips imprinting on his skin, shuts his eyes and breathes when Shizuo leans in so close he could feel the air brushing over his own lips and then he grabs around his chin to angle the head upwards and press his mouth flush to Izaya’s.

 

It’s the humming transported from throat to throat that sends their clarity to blank spatters ,the heat of their hands that carry the warmth of their bodies tangled by the enclosure of a kiss and that’s what curves Shizuo’s strength; the awareness that the strongest human paired up with the vilest informant form a bound that nobody could break through or bend over to claim the harshness of the past. 


	24. Serendipity

* * *

 

“Do you remember when Shinra spilled your milk and you blamed me from across the classroom?” Izaya tilts as he skips a beat to fall in line with Shizuo’s pace, walking slightly on toes to warm his breath around the direct giveaway of his eardrum. They were walking through the city more so Izaya could familiarise with longer distances--every now and then he’d catch around his elbow to steal a few seconds of reprise before going further with the usual smirk glisten on his face. Izaya’s moves are graceful but Shizuo knows the other holds great dexterity in hiding the painful grimace off his face; he feels it, when Izaya twists his fingers in his shirt and when he bounces in his side at a sharp turn or sudden strain in his lower muscles and when he talks it's just to avert his self-agony to higher picks he can not reach in a blur of memories that are as annoying as they’re resuscitating.

 

“It’s you who activated his Celty memories. You shouldn’t have asked him what he’s doing on Christmas.” Shizuo nagged while fishing his phone out to tap away the incoming message.

 

“I just wanted to know if he’d invite anyone else; you were _always_ invited.”

 

“That’s because me and Kadota weren’t assholes.” as he shuts his phone to view over the endless crowd and took Izaya's hand into his to guide them along the crosswalk. “And coming for food isn’t really much to show friendly respect.”

 

“I wasn’t coming _only_ for the food, Shizuo-chan.” Izaya pouts but briefly as his tone hides the implication of a lie Shizuo’s fast to catch and he’s opening his mouth again as they push over the pavement to the other side, when _‘Shizuo’_ is offered from a frail distance by a known voice that has their both heads shifted to the sound and the trail of conversation lost in the depths of unimportance.

 

“Kadota” Shizuo says and he touches gently around Izaya’s wrist, above the curve of the bracelet and once they move further two steps, Kadota is already pushing his way through and holds his hand for the acquisitiveness of a handshake. It’s Izaya the one Kadota sizes with his eyes, lingering over his features longer and stopped middle-way on their contact until Izaya shifts his gaze over to the ground and back to catch the profile Shizuo grants for him. “Where’s Celty?”

 

 _“Ah”_ Kadota sighs and scratches the back of his neck right under his bonnie. “Maybe you’ve heard, but a body was found and for the first time in months its not a Saika victim. It might be nothing, but she said she had this feeling so she’s off there I guess. She wanted to see you--both.”

 

“I must’ve lost my skills, I don’t even know about it.” Izaya says though he’s looking straight to Shizuo and he feels his cheek redden with the strength of his glare and the pierce of his lashes cutting through his vision like an iron knife and when he turns is to allow the blade to cut along his face and leave an itchy feeling that speaks beyond what Izaya delivers; “That’s quite a shocking news, isn’t it _Shizu-chan_?”

 

He could feel his windpipe closing, the air wheezed out and leaving him slack to emptiness and cold until Kadota says “How are you guys these days?” that brings instant warmth in both of their systems and makes Izaya turn sharply on his heels to hide the brightness of his cheeks with the shadow of his hair.

 

“We’re good.” he says when Shizuo responds with “We’re dating.” so fast and sharpen by the force of the consonants blurred out like echoes. Izaya reacts first and it’s only the blank expression and pinkish lips that shows his happiness and confusion alike, before Kadota sighs out another “Ah” more firm and longed at the edge in a soft smile too shattered by the surprise and Shizuo catches the dark silhouette before he sees it fully; the sound of a horse distant and the roaring of a motorcycle dies when Celty walks in front with her device ready in hand as if she was listening to them all the time. _'Are you sure?’_ is all it says and Shizuo can’t help but laugh at the stern question and the way Celty’s shoulders shake with uncertainty. 

 

Shizuo leans on his heels, his arm already sneaked up around Izaya’s shoulders to bring him closer and shuffle his hair in his fingers to breathe the clear vanilla from his raven locks. Izaya lets himself being pulled, lets Shizuo winding his fingertips in his scalp and his nose caressing the side of his face and when Shizuo replies, his voice is honey-warm and soft; the ‘Yes’ spilled like milk over coffee to incorporate under his skin. When he turns his head is to lock his eyes on mocha and trace with his vision the curve of the softness and most sincere smile he’s ever seen.

 

Izaya huffs a breath when he releases his arm, trailing his fingers on Shizuo’s skin in a teasingly manner before gripping tightly around his hands to close their fingers in between and share their intertwined connection. Kadota still smiles, if only brighter now, when Celty taps furiously on her keyboard and swings the text in they’re faces _. “I won’t allow you to cause disturbance anymore. I’ll chase you out myself. Either you behave or I’ll do it.”_

 

“No worries, Celty.” Shizuo says and Izaya knows already there’s only truth in his sentence. “I’ve seen too much to get back to it.” and he squeezes hard around his own palm so Izaya would see and feel the desperation firsthand.

 

“So then.” Kadota says as he drops on the metallic bench nearby. “Was the wheelchair victim really _Izaya_?”

 

“I told you he was.”

 

“I had a hard time accepting it.” he sighs while Celty throws her device in Shizuo’s face with _“What does he mean?”_ and _“It really_ was _true?! Please don’t tell me you blamed yourself!”_ and over to Izaya with a simple _“Are you okay now?”_ to which Izaya nodded and broke the grip to fall uncarelessly over the bench himself.

 

“I suppose we do have to explain some certain thinks now, don’t we, Shizuo-chan?”

 

It’s hard for Shizuo to accept it, still, and talking about their time in Nakameguro brings back the sound of a gun thrown to him over the direct command of _“Kill me”_ and endless sounds of wheels scrapping the surface underfoot; the knots eased under his hold after too much pressure exchanged to the muscles and the twist of Izaya’s pulse, but he’s holding onto Izaya’s hand and Izaya leans on him from his side to brush his knee over his own and when he allows the heat to emerge in his own blood he feels better than he ever was.


	25. Lusting

* * *

 

“Stop moving.” Shizuo groans while pressing resistance on Izaya’s waist to held him in place on the softance of mattress. He feels the pressure in his bones, the grip powerful enough to paint the violent stain of a bruise above his skin as the bone in his hip draws sharp lines on Shizuo’s palm. He still tries to position himself though, moving his leg to close around Shizuo’s ankles and dig the heel in the back of his foot and breaks the closure with a barely caught gasp in between kisses. “It’s quite hard kissing you while we both lay down, don’t you think?”

 

“Stop complaining.” and Shizuo draws in to urge his mouth open as he digs his nail in the back of his skull, tugging at the hair and curves Izaya’s throat to emit the groan deep down in his lungs to carry it over his tongue when he slips it over Izaya’s own to lick above the muscle and catch the overheat of the other’s heartbeat in the tremor of his own skin. Izaya shuts his eyes at the sudden roughness, his back arched and neck bended but he’s fast to point his canines over Shizuo’s lip and raise his arm to lock around the broader shoulders and press flush to its blades. He cups Shizuo’s face with his palm, the grip harder and stronger that flexes his muscles in a strained stillness and Shizuo twists his legs under his weight and blocks Izaya’s ankle between his knees; he lingers over Izaya’s frame with dexterity and quickened by the unnerving anticipation as he grips around his shoulder to pin Izaya down and under him--Izaya gasps from the changed position and purrs in appreciation to slid his hand and fist around the hem of his shirt to tug Shizuo closer. Shizuo groans, the force of the sound radiating in his own blood fluid and then he draws back by an inch, loving the way he can taste Izaya’s flows still on his tongue and spreading the distinct aroma in his nostrils.

 

“I’m not, now.” Izaya hums and his hips bounce on the bed to meet Shizuo’s own briefly and Shizuo’s eyes are shadowed, his pupils almost fully dilated when he catches the suggestion drawn on Izaya’s lips as the playful seduction he allures to him. He can see the pulse thumping under his neck curves, his clavicle in full-vision and deep red with the marks of his own fingertips and when he leans in is to graze along the bruise and moist the skin with the wetness of his tongue and the roughness of his stroke chilling Izaya from head to toe as he shuddered and squirmed under him with the jolts of pleasure. He yanks the shirt, rips the first buttons with the strain exchanged from deep within the curve of his spine as Izaya grazes his fingers to get the hold of Shizuo’s neck, Shizuo’s hair, Shizuo’s _heat_ under his fingertips and when he exhales the air is sucked in the opened windpipe from the other and even under tightly shut eyes and the resistance of his eyebrows narrowed above his forehead Izaya can feel Shizuo looking at him, analyzing and experimenting with his own vision the better exposure of skin to size his fingers around and Izaya sighs impatiently and shifts his eyes to gaze furiously at Shizuo above himself. “Are you going to continue or do you want to stare at each other for the rest of the night?”

 

Shizuo’s surprised at first, stoned and struck be the coherency of his tone that vibrates on his own throat like an oddity in the aftermath of muffled moans but his eyes hold the fire it must be given and Shizuo grabs intensively at his hip to tug slightly the hem off of his skin and touch gently the upfront waistband. “I could do that.” but he shifts from a knee to the other to a larger area from which Izaya could wind his own legs to fall comfortably on the mattress feeling the smallest knots forming under the overly used muscles.

 

 _“Creepy.”_ Izaya offers as he shuts his eyes to capitulate to the feeling of Shizuo’s fingers over him and arches his neck to suggest the exposure of bare skin when Shizuo huffs over him with such closure he can feel the heat of breadth on his open pores. Shizuo doesn’t talk--the rhetorical observation slipping like water through his brain with only the avowed grunt as a direct reply--but his fingers run over Izaya with a dexterity he himself isn’t certain from where he adopted, bracing the shadows of Izaya’s pelvis with his own fingertip to leave a red and abused mark against his bone when he trails his nails over the lower skin to grip around the pants hem and tug at them harshly to pull all the way off. Izaya shakes at the cold air hitting his skin; his legs flexed around Shizuo to catch the warmth and push him closer and only when he cam feel Shizuo’s cock--hard and slick-wet through his pants--does Izaya allow his moan to slip fully throated and convulse the silence to a mess of receptivity.

 

It’s true Izaya thinks about a blow job--they’ve done it plenty of times, providing pleasure for both sides though Shizuo was bluntly rejecting the right to claim his own with the flex of Izaya’s fingers stroking over himself or Izaya’s tongue guiding the curve of his cock like the back of a metallic spoon--but it’s Shizuo the one that stops mid-way on his first stroke, looking to the surface of both nightstands with precision and attention that grips Izaya’s anticipation to twist into desperation until Shizuo asks: “Do we have lube?” so clearly and pointed that Izaya blanks at the realization. “Izaya?” Shizuo asks and Izaya realizes he must’ve been staring for too long; his arm twitches as if burned off from Shizuo’s skin to force the cupboard open. “Do you want to?” Shizuo continues softer and too quiet that Izaya needs to strain his ears to catch the shape of the other’s sounds and picture them as a whole in his own rationality. “If you don’t want it, it’s understandable, I--”

 

 _“Stop.”_ Izaya orders when Shizuo drops his head so the bleached blond darkened by the shadows of the night would fall over his features as a makeshift mask. Izaya shoves the bottle in his hand and the other flinches at the coldness, his eyes over Izaya more intense than at the liquid in hand. “You’ve started it, now grab that and _fuck_ me.”

 

 _“Izaya.”_ Shizuo says as a warning but the strive of his air smoked out from his lungs drives him closer to complete worry and it makes Izaya more determined than before. “You want it.” he says as a fact and feels the palm around the base of his cock tightened in what he quickly calls a successful outcome; “Isn’t it your dream? Pinning me on the bed and thrust into me until you feel your head swallowed in the overly-spilled cum? You can have it right now, if you want it.” and he draws his arm to loose the hold of Shizuo’s hair and curves his wrist on his forehead, hides his eyes with the blackness of the bracelet. “But do you?”

 

Shizuo groans and feels the force of it through his system like a self-implied wound and the violence of an explosion blowing all up. _“Fuck.”_ he says over the twist of the bottle cup opening, staining his fingers with the transparent color. The first finger is felt like a satellite through his body and mind as it hacked around his focus to give way to the disorientation and breathlessness wheezes for air while he claimed the moans for the back of his throat instead of the space displayed between them. Shizuo digs the finger slowly all the way, watching the changes of discomfort on his face as Izaya fists around the sheets and arches his spine to fall in line with Shizuo’s wrist and to secure his legs around his hips. Shizuo stops to leave him adjusting to the new sensation, rubbing forbearing on his hipbone to trace the curve of his legs tighter around himself and allow a better and wider space and when he moves is to stick out the finger too, brushing over the entrance before pushing it in forcefully in rhythm with his thrust on Izaya’s sides. The wrist moves; it’s a synchronization that blends the reality with one touch and leaves Izaya sprawled on the bed to inhale the smoke-infatuated breath Shizuo hovers over him to the bottom of his lungs. Shizuo draws his hand by an inch, feeling the friction of nails inside him to scratch and spread the walls wider until the uneven strokes develop in full coordinate thrusts that wash the heat over Izaya until he pulls out to come back in and push the weight of two fingers all the way upwards and Izaya’s eyes blown open with the surge of tension building inside him; his eyes burned in the back of his head and his head drops on the pillow to offer a soft resistance as his lips part with the break of a moan on full display that hangs his lungs in deprivation.

 

It’s hard to get the calmness of breathing surging inside him--his throat protesting an awful ache along his esophagus but Shizuo doesn’t stop and Izaya doesn’t complain as the strength of his fingers violates his sides to open up for him, rougher and faster until the only sound Shizuo could decipher was the squirm of his knuckles colliding with Izaya’s cock which made it arch on the flush of his stomach and redden around the base of its head. Shizuo doesn’t spear a glance to Izaya, he thinks the sight of the other moaning for him and panting with the giveaway of helplessness would drove him over the edge to lose all self-restrain he has in the moment and then Izaya locks his ankles in his legs, brings him in for the slap of his wrist to stop in a middle of a stoke and rasps _“Fuck me”_ so low and loud Shizuo could feel the individual letters pulling on his skin. “Shizuo please, I want it, I want--” and his voice breaks when Shizuo draws his thrust to fully end it and meet the softance of his insides to blur out another moan.

 

“You can barely move.” Shizuo says and trails the weight of his palm over the flesh of his leg and Izaya shudders at the contact as a muscle screams in protest and itches his blood veins to thump against his skin. Shizuo looks at him finally and Izaya widened his eyes to meet the other in a string of torment that changes uncannily close to a screaming call for the other to obey at the command and Izaya’s chest convulses with the proximity of the stare; Shizuo shuts his mouth and relaxes his fingers to pull out from the tighten walls and hazes his eyes to an emptiness that blanks out the lusting for a stronger sense of concern when Izaya groans and shifts his elbow to push himself bodily and fist the other hand around Shizuo’s hem.

 

“I want you to.” he says under the clench of his teeth and narrow of his eyes; “I want your cock so badly; even before I wanted to feel you over me, ruining me, just _fuck_ me, Shizuo!” and the name is lost on the wetness of the other’s lips as he kisses and licks into his mouth with intensity that forces Izaya back on his spine. The loss of fingers is barely noticed over the heat of the kiss and then Shizuo fisted on his pants and dragged the waistband to warm the exposed flesh with one stroke, long and persistent, and when he bucks his hips is to meet the heat around the walls of his hole and Izaya arches his head and flexes his arms around Shizuo’s shoulders until the skin burns and he can feel the flesh sink in the marks of his nails.

 

“ _God_ , Izaya.” Shizuo groans and resonates the sound around themselves to push and pull with a speed given secondhandly by Izaya’s rocks of hips. Shizuo tightens his hold on Izaya’s waist, stops the frantic rhythm to offer a rougher and slower approach that leaves Izaya breathless under him and closes his conscience with the strength of his thrusts. Izaya likes it; the roughness of the moves knocks the air warmly from his lungs and parts his lips to articulate the sounds of _‘More’_ and _‘Faster’_ which Shizuo reads from his lips and capitulates to. “ _Izaya_ , fuck, I--”

 

 _“Yes.”_ Izaya shouts and tightens his legs around to feel the cock bouncing on his walls and feel the flesh inside him itching from the constant and the brutal thrusts. “I wanted you so bad, want to feel you come inside me, please, I need to--” as Shizuo thrusts inside him faster until he sees red over the darkness of raven hair, his hips slamming shamelessly on Izaya’s and the length of his head spreads the tightness to a soreness blinded by the slick precum staining its walls. Shizuo can barely hold it; Izaya is moaning and convulsing under him, the sounds clear as a melody shouted in his eardrums by the boxes of headphones and then Izaya quivers the weight of a sob and whispers lowly “I love you” as his rationality is taken and fucked over when he climaxes around his cock and strains his throat for an airless moan as Shizuo speeds up and thrusts harder with the shape of his name glued to the arch of his tongue; Shizuo thrusts once to dig his cock fully and feel the walls tighten around him and the warmth of the skin encircling the bare muscle to bend it and spasms with the force of his own orgasm when he groans lowly and drops his head on the pillow bellow.

 

Izaya is barely breathing, his chest raising under Shizuo’s own and the pulse of his heart beating faster than a hummingbird. Shizuo sighs the sound of appreciation, cupping his cheek in his palm and feeling the heat like a burning stove until he leans in to capture Izaya’s lips with his in a soft and lazy-like kiss. Izaya sighs and opens his eyes to stare back as they break the silk-wet friction and Shizuo smiles, pulls over him to peck around his face with a force that makes Izaya laugh to refresh his smoldering throat and ease the pain in his bones with the heat of _Shizuo_ over him.

 

“I love you too.” Shizuo says and tastes the truth on his tongue dissolving with the lingering, addicting scent still predominantly sweet that flows through every turbulence of his pulse. 


	26. Home

* * *

 

“Celty said we should be there around 6 PM." Shizuo says as he holds the door open for Izaya to glide through. “Shinra will surely beg us to be late though.” 

 

“We’ll _definitely_ be late.” Izaya states with force in his tonality to twist Shizuo’s disinterest towards him while he speaks and guides them further to the empty table with menus already on display like a clear offering of welcoming and anticipation. “It’s Christmas, I’m not about to spend it listening to Shinra’s fantasies.” as he drops easily on the couch to slide his hips bodily on the surface up towards the cold wall.

 

Shizuo huffs, something close to annoyance but his mouth is slack and relaxed on a perplex line that shows half-agreement and when he moves is to slide against Izaya’s body to catch the warmth emitted from within and reaches over for the sushi dishes laid before them. Izaya hums when he feels the heat moving between themselves; he barely relaxes his shoulders, hunched over like in a preparation of a fight similar to every time he and Shizuo met on the outskirts of the town or in the deep-bleeding heart of it but it’s a feeling reserved especially for the past and the past remains forgotten. Shizuo isn’t doing any better, his hands are fisted around his palms to leave the veins straining in a visible flex and he’s trembling, not only from the cold, as he turns the pages with one hand and the swing of his finger, but it’s only the presence of multiple eyes on their backs and whispers hushed in the length of their ear shots that drives such tension and Izaya presses his head flush on Shizuo’s shoulder to smell the lingering cigarette smoke from his vest and when he draws back is with a no longer twisted smile and Shizuo relaxes to flex his fingers until the white knuckles shifts to red again and slides intentionality to grip around his wrist. “And what do you think we should be doing?” he asks when he catches the flame in Izaya’s eyes as he leans over to kiss above the wires and the skin around it.

 

“That depends, Shizuo-chan. We can either fuck in the shower or watch a movie. I think I’ll be reading though, so you need to think about something to occupy your time for yourself.”

 

The laugh is spilled over the caressed wrist-bone; “ _Shower?_ We’ve never done it there.”

 

“Sure, but it’s warmer than any other place around the house. I want to have my comfort while you fuck me senseless, Shizuo-chan.”

 

“I’m pretty sure you’re a masochist and comfortable is nowhere near the truth.” Shizuo tries to laugh but it smacks on his windpipe to graze out only the bark of a half-groan and he traces his fingers to close around Izaya’s own, squeezing tightly. “And quit talking about that now, people can hear.”

 

“Nobody is listening.” Izaya says while showing around with the extent of his arm to the crowds of people at every table. “Would you rather I’ll sing odes to your cock and see if they turn around?”

 

“Oh, God, _Izaya_.” Shizuo groans and holds tighter around his fingers until Izaya can barely feel his articulations blended into a soreness from Shizuo’s strength itself. “You’re terrible.”

 

“You usually say that.” Izaya purrs and leans his shoulder to collide painfully with Shizuo’s arm; to dig his bones in the other’s flesh and feel the strain of Shizuo’s muscle easing with as much as he pushes, hard enough to knock them over the couch if it wasn’t for Shizuo’s stability in his legs. “I sometimes wonder if you really _do_ love me.”

 

Shizuo twitches at the fake sadness and guides his fingers over his wrist smoothly while slowly chuckling. “I bought you this _before_ I told you I love you, I thought it was enough of a hint to decipher my feelings, _flea_.” as his fingertip traced the curves of the wired heart.

 

“Maybe that’s why I never take it off, _huh_? It’s the only think providing the amount of confession I need!” he says and shoves his arm from Shizuo’s grip to close his fingers around the opened menu and skim around the blur of words.

 

 _“Izaya”_ Shizuo groans and it’s harsher now, almost annoyed as the frustration strikes into him until Izaya laughs and closes the distance to purr the tremor of his chords on Shizuo’s lips and taste the morning milk on his own. “Do I _really_ love you?” he squirms his eyes while asking to hover his stare under his lashes and study Shizuo’s mouth-line that remained as unmoving and bored as before.

 

“You do.” he says with clarity thrown on every word. “You’ve said it before, you’re _infatuated_.” and he closes his mouth on the suggestion of a smirk to turn and glare absently at the darkening sky and overly-crowded streets. “We’ve been here before too, remember?” he asks before Izaya could reply to his mockery.

 

Izaya nods and Shizuo sees it washed-free in the reflection of the window-glass “Yeah, Simon forced us to eat after he broke down our fight.” he admits when he leans over the table with his elbows to raise the menu eye-leveled and read it through. “It’s not as if _this_ is any different.”

 

“There’s one difference.” Shizuo turns in sync with Izaya’s arm to graze his fingers gently on Izaya’s wrist and drag it to his lap. He shifts to brace a leg over the other and hovers for his hair to brush against the raven locks as he kisses the pointed cheekbone and closes his arm around Izaya’s shoulders. He feels Izaya breathe under him, his heat and caffeine aroma spreading throughout his nostrils and the feeling is the closer he could call as _home_.

 

“We’re no longer forced.”


End file.
